Jake W. Dean

About Me

I am a Chancellor's, EMIGRA Conservation & Cultural Research, and NSF Graduate Research Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at UCSB. As an environmental anthropologist, I primarily employ ethnographic methods, close reading, and insights from local ecological knowledge to analyze the political ecology of ecotourism, fisheries, and marine conservation in North America. My dissertation research seeks to create a posthumanist political ecology of conservation efforts, whale-watching, and the affective entanglements of ecotourists along the migratory path of Pacific gray whales between coastal Alaska and Baja California Sur, Mexico. I currently serve as the Book Reviews Editor for the Journal of Political Ecology and the Graduate Student Chair for the Sports Studies Caucus (American Studies Association). I will also join the board of Culture and Agriculture (American Anthropology Association) in 2024.

I received a B.A. in Anthropology and a B.S. in Earth & Space Exploration with honors from Arizona State University in 2021. I also completed an M.A. in Latin American Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory from the University of Arizona in 2023.