Eric Thomas

I research how citizens respond to the social, economic, and environmental impacts of green capitalist development in rural communities. I am especially interested in the distributive politics that emerge during and after environmental disasters and how the distribution of benefits, entitlements, and cash helps establish and legitimize new industries and initiatives. I also examine the ways in which social movements achieve environmental justice—even and especially when environmental degradation is invisible to the wider public.

Since 2015, I have conducted ethnographic fieldwork on the coast of Chilean Patagonia, where harmful algal blooms routinely close fisheries and cause mass mortality events at local salmon farms. In the context of these disasters, I explore the relationship between industrial aquaculture and fishing in remote coastal communities as well as the long-term sustainability of these industries. I am now developing a new project focused on how small-scale fishers and farmers contribute to rural food security during disasters and supply chain disruptions.

In the United States, I research how sustainability operates as a normative framework and the importance of improvisation among aquaculture operators in New England. My research methods include participant observation, career histories, participatory mapping, surveys, and semi-structured interviews. 

NRC/ENVIRSCI 554: Sustainable Food Systems

NRC/ENVIRSCI 494JI: Social Movements and Environmental Justice

GEOGRAPH 420: Political Ecology

GEOGRAPH 102: Introduction to Human Geography

In Progress:

Thomas, E. H. (2027) Sharing the Sea: Sustaining Green Capitalism in Chilean Patagonia (forthcoming from University of Texas Press)

Published:

Thomas, E. H. (2024) Routine losses, “continuous improvement,” and warming oceans: Managing Risk on Chile’s Aquaculture Frontier. Latin American Perspectives (early online view). https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X241283906 

Thomas, E. H. (2024) Improvising Sustainability: Closed System Fish Farmers in Western Massachusetts. Human Organization. 83(2): 130-144. https://doi.org/10.1080/00187259.2024.2333767

Thomas, E. H. (2024) A Grassroots Organization Stops Exploratory Drilling in Chile. Glacier Hub: Columbia Climate School State of the Planet (blog). https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2024/03/14/a-grassroots-organization-stops-exploratory-drilling-in-chile/

Thomas, E. H. (2023) Fishers who don’t fish: Redistribution and community in times of crisis. American Ethnologist. 50(1):75-89. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.13113

Thomas, E. H. (2022) Coastal Lives: Coastal Lives: Nature, Capital, and the Struggle for Artisanal Fisheries in Peru by Maximilian Viatori and Héctor Bombiella. American Anthropologist. 123(4):437-438. (book review) https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13708

Thomas, E. H. (2022) Democracy and Development in Chilean Patagonia. Anthropology News. August 29. https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/democracy-and-development-in-chilean-patagonia/

Mendoza, M., Greenleaf, M., and Thomas, E. H. (2021) Green Distributive Politics: Legitimizing Green Capitalism and Environmental Protection in Latin America. Geoforum. 126:1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.07.012

Thomas, E. H. (2021) Sanitary Crises and “No Contact” Aquaculture: Chilean Fish Farming During the Pandemic. Culture, Agriculture, Food, and the Environment. 43(1):14-24. https://doi.org/10.1111/cuag.12265

Thomas, E. H. (2021) Making Maps on the Coast of Patagonia: Class, Power, and Industrial Expansion. Practicing Anthropology 43(1):30-34. https://doi.org/10.17730/0888-4552.43.1.30

Thomas, E. H. (2018) Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Firewood Trade in Southern Chile. In Chiloé: The Ethnobiology of an Island Culture. A. Daughters and A. Pitchon, eds. New York: Springer.  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91983-6_6

Thomas, E. H. (2018) Crisis and catastrophe on Chiloé: Collective memory and the (re)framing of an environmental disaster. Cultural Dynamics. 30(3):199-213. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0921374018795236 

Thomas, E. H. (2017) Territories of Possibility. Cultural Dynamics. 29(4):328-332. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0921374017740457

Thomas, E. H. (2017) Capitalism in the Web of Life by Jason W. Moore. Journal of Political Ecology 24. (book review) https://doi.org/10.2458/v24i1.21075

Ph.D. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2020

MA. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2016

BA. Hamilton College, 2009

Since 2015, I have conducted ethnographic fieldwork on the coast of Chilean Patagonia.  This research is the basis of my current book project, Sharing the Sea: Sustaining Green Capitalism in Chilean Patagonia.

I am also developing a project examining local perceptions of aquaculture operations in New England as well as the sector’s political, economic, and social impacts. 

• Political Ecology
• Resource Frontiers
• Aquaculture
• Fisheries
• Coastal Development