Paige West wins Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award
The 2017 award goes to CSSD Project Director Paige West for Dispossession and the Environment.
The Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award is funded by the office of the Provost. It will be awarded annually by the Press to a book by a Columbia University faculty member that brings the highest distinction to Columbia University and Columbia University Press for its outstanding contribution to academic and public discourse.
The 2017 award winner is Dispossession and the Environment: Rhetoric and Inequality in Papua New Guinea, by Paige West, Claire Tow Professor of Anthropology, Barnard College, Columbia University. Professor West is a Project Director for CSSD project Pacific Climate Circuits: Moving Beyond Science, Technology, Engineering, and Economics.
About Dispossession and the Environment:
When journalists, developers, surf tourists, and conservation NGOs cast Papua New Guineans as living in a prior nature and prior culture, they devalue their knowledge and practice, facilitating their dispossession. Paige West’s searing study reveals how a range of actors produce and reinforce inequalities in today’s globalized world. She shows how racist rhetorics of representation underlie all uneven patterns of development and seeks a more robust understanding of the ideological work that capital requires for constant regeneration.
Support WOMEN CREATING CHANGE: Columbia Giving Day is October 18, 2017
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Learn more about supporting Women Creating Change this October 18, 2017 on the Giving Day website: https://givingday.columbia.edu/pages/women-creating-change
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Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Director of CSSD "Unpayable Debt" Project, speaks out on the racism and injustice underlying the crisis in Puerto Rico and the failure of the administration's response
Professor Frances Negrón-Muntaner, faculty director of CSSD project Unpayable Debt, published several articles on the humanitarian crises facing Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria.
Professor Frances Negrón-Muntaner, faculty director of CSSD project Unpayable Debt, and former director of CSSD affiliate Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, published several articles on the humanitarian crises facing Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, arguing that these crises are compounded by colonialist policies.
"Puerto Ricans can do without a reluctant visit by a president that they can't vote for and gratuitously attacks them. Instead, what the island needs is immediate life-saving resources, a comprehensive reconstruction package, equity in all federal programs, debt relief, and, at last, the abolition of the entire colonial apparatus." - Frances Negrón-Muntaner
Read Negrón-Muntaner's article "Puerto Rico was Undergoing a Humanitarian Crisis Long Before Hurricane Maria" in the Pacific Standard here.
Read her article "The Crisis in Puerto Rico is a Racial Issue - Here's Why" in The Root here.
Read her article "The Last Emperor," published by Univision, here.
Former CSSD Director Rachel Adams working toward Masters in Genetic Counseling
Rachel Adams, a Faculty Director of the CSSD Precision Medicine project, is taking her interdisciplinary research interests to the next level, and she is recording her progress online.
Former CSSD Director Rachel Adams working toward Masters in Genetic Counseling
Former Director of the Center for the Study of Social Difference (CSSD) Rachel Adams, who is currently a Faculty Director of the CSSD Precision Medicine project (co-directed by Maya Sabatello, LLB, PhD, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons), is taking her interdisciplinary research interests to the next level:
"I'm starting an experiment of unknown duration and outcome. I'm a mid-career American literature professor who has decided to learn science. More specifically, I'm taking the prerequisites for a Masters' program in genetic counseling, which I hope to complete at some undetermined time in the future." - Rachel Adams, Director of CSSD's Precision Medicine project
Adams will be documenting her experience working toward a new Masters degree in genetic counseling - you can follow her progress on Medium here.