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Pieck says her undergraduate professors “changed the way I understood the world.” She strives to have similar impact with her students. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College.<\/p><\/div>\n
Sonja K. Pieck, a member of the Bates environmental studies faculty since 2007, addresses those questions in her courses and through research here and abroad, particularly in South America.<\/span><\/p>\n Her work in the classroom \u2014 which two years ago brought her a Bates Kroepsch Award for outstanding teaching \u2014 and in the field has led to her recent promotion to the position of associate professor of environmental studies, with tenure, effective Aug.1.<\/span><\/p>\n Daughter of a German diplomat, Pieck got to explore the world early as her family migrated between her father\u2019s various postings. Before she entered college she had lived in Algeria, Germany, Israel, Ecuador and several U.S. locations, including Boston and Washington, D.C.<\/span><\/p>\n Along the way, she became interested in the question, \u201cWhy do places look so different?\u201d She said her family\u2019s environmental consciousness also led her to ask, for example, \u201chow decisions made in Washington and New York translate into environmental changes at particular times, in particular places and for particular groups of people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Pieck majored in environmental studies at Bucknell University, then earned a master\u2019s degree and a doctorate in geography at Clark University before taking a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago.<\/span><\/p>\n Today, Pieck studies transnational activism, nongovernmental organizations, indigenous movements and debates around environmental governance, with a focus on the Andean and Amazonian regions of South America.<\/span><\/p>\n She has taught a range of courses examining environmental problems and politics from various social science perspectives and shares teaching responsibility for \u201cCommunity-Engaged Research in Environmental Studies,\u201d the capstone course for the major.<\/span><\/p>\n Pieck has also had a leading role in the development of a new program and major in Latin American Studies, to begin in fall 2013. \u201cThis major speaks to not only the influence the rest of world has had on the region, but the region\u2019s influence on the world, especially the U.S. We are seeing a much more profound impact of Latin American cultures and populations in the U.S. and that\u2019s very exciting.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Pieck says, \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in the multiple meanings that nature has for people and how those meanings become sources of people\u2019s identity \u2014 their hopes and their antagonisms among each other. How do people identify with particular places and forms of nature, and how do they negotiate the changing forms of nature?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy other set of interests is around forms of political participation related to nature, especially the politics around access to nature and natural resources.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In short, Pieck said, \u201cI look at the nexus of power and nature. Political participation is a question of meaning-making. That\u2019s why I\u2019m also so interested in social movements and NGOs, because they are ways in which people are trying to participate or trying to make claims on nature.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Why focus on South America? She explained, \u201cSouth America has some of the world\u2019s most evocative forms of nature,\u201d which have also become flashpoints for conflicting economic and environmental interests.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n “When you build an asphalt highway in the middle of a rainforest, it has enormous environmental and social ripple effects.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Her current research focus, the Interoceanic Highway, is a prime example of struggles triggered by competing desires for rapid economic progress, a healthy environment and a just social order.<\/span><\/p>\n The project to build a highway between Brazil and Peru \u2014 \u201crunning through the rainforest, then snaking up over the Andes mountains and back down to the Peruvian coast\u201d \u2014 was initiated by the two countries to provide a trade outlet to the Pacific for the commodities that are fueling their booming economies: natural gas, oil and timber plus minerals including copper, zinc and gold.<\/span><\/p>\nGrowing up a citizen of the world<\/h3>\n
Studying nature and human nature<\/h3>\n
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