Matt Abel joined the faculty of Kenyon College in July 2023 and teaches in the Department of Anthropology. Drawing on a mixture of ethnographic and archival research, his fieldwork in the Brazilian Amazon examines how legacies of extractivism and unequal exchange shape contemporary processes of capitalist development and condition possibilities for collective action and environmental governance over time.

Abel collaborates with agrarian social movements and environmental justice organizations in the east Amazonian state of Pará and has published in outlets such as the NACLA Report on the Americas, Cultural Anthropology, Economic Anthropology, and Nature Plants. His research has received support from the National Science Foundation, U.S.-Brazil Fulbright Commission and Beinecke Foundation.

Areas of Expertise

Economic anthropology, political ecology of the Amazon, Brazil

Education

2023 — PhD candidate from Washington University

2018 — Master of Arts from Washington University

2016 — Bachelor of Arts from College of William and Mary

Courses Recently Taught

This course introduces students to the discipline that studies and compares cultures. Students learn about the main concepts used in anthropology and how anthropologists conduct research, while also discovering how people live in other times and places. They also learn about theories that provide frameworks for understanding and comparing cultures. Ethnographic descriptions of life in particular places give students factual materials with which to apply and critique such theories. Through this introduction to the study of culture in general, and an exposure to specific cultures, students inevitably come to re-examine some of the premises of their own culture. This foundation course is required for upper-level work in cultural anthropology courses. No prerequisite. Offered every semester.