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