IPinCH Fellow: 2011-2012
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Heritage, and Environmental Policy, Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Tech University
Melissa’s work engages multi-sited and comparative and ethnographic approaches to examine how multi-national corporations, the State, private sector, heritage experts, and other decision-makers draw on the rhetoric of heritage, rights, and sustainability in environmental decisions and management. Through the lens of resource frontiers, her research seeks to broaden our understanding of global heritage and environmental politics, especially how heritage intersects with Indigenous rights and environmental protections.
Melissa employs diverse methods and draws on a broad range of research experiences to examine the ecological, social, and political impacts of resource extraction. She is currently completing a book manuscript, Critical Heritage Landscapes, under contract with University Press of Florida. She asks: What are the implications of cultural landscapes as heritage? What are the political and historical realities interpreting and ‘making landscapes’?
