About

Nora Haenn is a Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at North Carolina State University, serving as the Director of Undergraduate Programs for the Department of Integrative Humanities and Social Sciences. Her research focuses on globalization, human-environment relations, and migration, with particular attention to southern Mexico. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and she is a three-time recipient of the Fulbright-García Robles Fellowship. Haenn's scholarship explores rainforest conservation, sustainable development, environmental justice, and ethnic relations, analyzing how government mechanisms influence environmental policy and local communities. She authored the book 'Fields of Power, Forests of Discontent: Culture, Conservation, and the State in Mexico,' which examines the roots of conservation efforts in southern Mexico through agricultural and forestry aid programs, linking these to the experiences of small-holding farmers and the broader context of biotechnology and industrial agriculture. Her subsequent research investigates the social and environmental impacts of international migration, culminating in her 2020 book 'Marriage after Migration,' which ethnographically explores men's labor migration and its effects on family dynamics and local economies. Haenn supervises students in the Anthropology M.A. program and undergraduate majors across Anthropology, International Studies, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her extensive research and community engagement include public talks, media appearances, and participation in academic organizations, contributing significantly to understanding environmental and social issues in Mexico and beyond.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Anthropology
• Political Science
• Social Science
• Geography
• Ecology
• Environmental ethics
• History
• Art history
• Physics
• Law

Selected publications

• Velásquez, Teresa A.Pachamama politics: Campesino water defenders and the anti‐mining movement in Andean Ecuador. 272 pp., bibliogr. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2022. $35.00 (paper)

  Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute · 2025-01-26

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In Pachamama politics, Teresa Velásquez bears witness to Ecuadorean Indigenous and peasant activism that seeks to end gold-mining initiatives that threaten water quality and local control of water systems. Situated within activist anthropology, the book adds to research on Ecuador's social movements, especially the alternatives they pose to extractive economies. Velásquez charts movement tactics as these expand to Ecuador's highlands in the region of Cuenca. Giving particular attention to Andean cosmopolitics, the book asks: how do people who formerly distanced themselves from Indigeneity come to employ such identities in activist settings? Could Ecuador's government deliver on ‘Sumak Kawsay’? Translated as ‘Buen Vivir’, or ‘living well’, and incorporated into Ecuador's constitution in 2008, the term is rooted in Andean cosmologies and promises a ‘new kind of public coexistence, in diversity and harmony with nature’ (p. 11). To answer these questions, four chapters provide a chronology of movement activities between the years 2005 and 2010, a time of vigorous political action. In 2007, Ecuador elected a left-leaning president, Rafael Correa, who secured office during South America's ‘Pink Tide’ (p. 10) when populist leaders came to power across the continent. Ecuador's constitutional reforms were part of this shift and included additional components important to Velásquez's interlocutors. One declared Ecuador a ‘plurinational state’ (p. 25), a phrase that facilitated political claims, such as the right to Indigenous representation in national agencies. The second recognized the inherent rights of Pachamama, an entity central to Andean cosmovisions and defined by the author's interlocutors as ‘our mother earth’ (p. 63). In this way, Ecuador was the first country to acknowledge constitutionally the more-than-human as coeval political subjects. To the extent these reforms and their associated movements protected watersheds from mining, Velásquez makes clear these efforts took place without Correa's backing. The state remained a guarantor of Pachamama's rights, towards which Correa and his administration behaved much as previous administrations had: they sided with international corporations and evinced prejudice against rural and Indigenous people and, by extension, the Pachamama cosmovision. Correa also opposed inclusion of Indigenous groups in governance. In response, activists demanded consideration. The bulk of Velásquez's reporting details movements’ actions, including legislative and bureaucratic manoeuvres, street demonstrations, road blockages, and the defence of imprisoned activists in which identity considerations became central. Velásquez relates that by assuming the mantel of Ecuadorian leftism, Correa marginalized other avenues of left-wing activism. This marginalization bolstered ethnic identity as grounds for claims-making. A movement based on Indigenous culture, however, required translation to gain purchase in the multi-ethnic highlands. Thus, Catholic priests provided political and spiritual legitimacy to the new assertion of water rights as distinctly Indigenous. Meanwhile, highland leaders and rank-and-file participants espoused contrary views of Indigeneity. In two chapters on identity, Velásquez describes leaders as mainly rural, educated men who adopted Indigenous identities that allowed them to network with other leaders. This adoption energized the movement but also bordered on appropriation. The rank-and-file participants Velásquez considers were mainly women who denied an Indigenous identity, as openly espousing Indigeneity made women targets of elite prejudice. Since in activist circles such an identity could circumscribe women's roles as a consequence of Indigenous gender norms, Velásquez's female interlocutors emphasized a class-based identity. How might these divergences produce an Andean cosmopolitics? Velásquez suggests the answer lies in linguistics. Activists began to refer to their work as recuperar lo tradicional or ‘recovering the traditional’. They also talked about defending lo nuestro or ‘defending ours’ and defending lo propio, ‘one's own’. Slippage between these phrases leveraged Indigenous identities, as what is ‘ours’ or ‘traditional’ could therefore be ‘Indigenous’. For those seeking distance from Indigenous identities, the language allowed them to emphasize a fight against dispossession. In the book's conclusion, Velásquez reports that in a 2021 referendum, a multi-ethnic coalition of 80 per cent of Cuenca's voters chose to prohibit large-scale mining (p. 189). The larger movement proved effective. Reporting on social movements, nonetheless, presents narrative challenges for readers seeking to understand such success, and Pachamama politics only partly overcomes these challenges. Social movements embrace shifting constellations of individuals and groups. The book's supplemental material offers lists of principal actors, organizational acronyms, and a timeline of events, which readers may find they refer to frequently. Social movements can engage in actions which, to outsiders, appear quite similar but details of which are salient to participants. Narratively, this repetition (see chs 2, 3, and 4) risks focusing on episodes of struggle at the expense of informing readers of the political and cultural work such actions accomplish. At the book's end, this reader was heartened by the movements’ victories but unclear whether and how Andean cosmovisions became popularized within and beyond the movement to secure movement goals.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Fields of Power, Forests of Discontent

  2022 · 9 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Physics
  PublisherDOI

• The Environment in Anthropology : A Reader in Ecology, Culture, and Sustainable Living

  2021 · 116 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Social Science
  • Political Science

  The Environment in Anthropology presents ecology and current environmental studies from an anthropological point of view. From the classics to the most current scholarship, this book connects the theory and practice in environment and anthropology, giving readers a strong intellectual foundation as well as offering practical tools for solving environmental problems. Haenn and Wilk pose the most urgent questions of environmental protection: How are environmental problems mediated by cultural values? What are the environmental effects of urbanization? When do environmentalists get in conflict with indigenous peoples? How can we assess the impact of environmentally correct businesses such as the Body Shop? They also cover the fundamental topics of population growth, large scale development, biodiversity conservation, sustainable environmental management, indigenous groups, consumption, and globalization. Balancing landmark essays with cutting-edge scholarship, bridging theory and practice, and offering suggestions for further reading and new directions for research, The Environment in Anthropology is the ideal introduction to a burgeoning field. Contributors: J. Peter Brosius, Billie DeWalt, Arturo Escobar, Akhil Gupta, Caren Kaplan, Conrad Kottak, David Maybury-Lewis, B.J. McCay, Kay Milton, Virginia Nazarea, Robert Netting, Vandana Shiva, Julian Steward, and Susan C. Stonich.

  OA PDF

• Alonso Bejarano, Carolina, Lucia López Juárez, Mirian A. Mijangos García, and Daniel M. Goldstein: Decolonizing Ethnography. Undocumented Immigrants and New Directions in Social Science. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. 184 pp. ISBN 978-1-4780-0395-3. Price: $ 23.95

  Anthropos · 2020-01-01 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• 31. The Power of Environmental Knowledge

  New York University Press eBooks · 2020-12-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Environment in Anthropology (Second Edition)

  New York University Press eBooks · 2020 · 3 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Anthropology
  • Geography

  The Environment in Anthropology presents ecology and current environmental studies from an anthropological point of view. From the classics to the most current scholarship, this text connects the theory and practice in environment and anthropology, providing readers with a strong intellectual foundation as well as offering practical tools for solving environmental problems. Haenn, Wilk, and Harnish pose the most urgent questions of environmental protection: How are environmental problems mediated by cultural values? What are the environmental effects of urbanization? When do environmentalists’ goals and actions conflict with those of indigenous peoples? How can we assess the impact of “environmentally correct” businesses? They also cover the fundamental topics of population growth, large scale development, biodiversity conservation, sustainable environmental management, indigenous groups, consumption, and globalization. This revised edition addresses new topics such as water, toxic waste, neoliberalism, environmental history, environmental activism, and REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), and it situates anthropology in the multi-disciplinary field of environmental research. It also offers readers a guide for developing their own plan for environmental action. This volume offers an introduction to the breadth of ecological and environmental anthropology as well as to its historical trends and current developments. Balancing landmark essays with cutting-edge scholarship, bridging theory and practice, and offering suggestions for further reading and new directions for research, The Environment in Anthropology continues to provide the ideal introduction to a burgeoning field.

  DOI

• “Lies build trust”: Social capital, masculinity, and community-based resource management in a Mexican fishery

  World Development · 2019-07-05 · 24 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mexican anti-poverty program targeting poor women may help men most, study finds

  2018-07-24

  preprint1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• El programa mexicano que intenta reducir la pobreza de mujeres beneficia más a sus maridos

  2018-07-26

  preprint1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Empowering women?

  2018-11-02

  book-chapter

  In this chapter, we explore a paradox in conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs aimed at women – namely, that these transfers are meant to empower women, but simultaneously count on women’s subordination to discipline them in accordance with program requirements. By utilizing women’s subordination, program managers subtly reinforce pre-existing norms, including patriarchal ideals. This contradiction is evident in the implementation of Mexico’s Prospera program in the rural and highly marginalized municipality of Calakmul on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. We draw on long-term participant observation and a 15-community survey of 227 households conducted in 2010. In 2017, we returned to four of these communities and interviewed program recipients and administrators. Our research suggests women are aware that Prospera utilizes their vulnerability to insinuate its demands into their lives. None of the women interviewed feel empowered through Prospera. On the contrary, their reliance on a program that they believe can arbitrarily penalize or dismiss them inspires fear. In this sense, Prospera does not soften women’s social marginalization, but instead produces its own social distancing or exclusions. This research contributes to broader understanding of the intersections of CCTs with existing gender structures, expanding beyond a current focus on CCTs’ construction of women as mothers and caregivers.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Effects of International Migration on Land Use and Conservation in Mexico

  NSF · $63k · 2010–2011

Frequent coauthors

• Birgit Schmook

  El Colegio de la Frontera Sur

  5 shared

• Claudia Radel

  Utah State University

  3 shared

• Sophie Calmé

  3 shared

• Yol Monica Reyes

  University of Ottawa

  2 shared

• Richard Wilk

  2 shared

• Santana Navarro Olmedo

  2 shared

• Rebecca Evans McCoy

  North Carolina State University

  1 shared

• José E. Martínez-Reyes

  1 shared

Labs

• Research and EngagementPI

Awards & honors

• Fulbright-García Robles Fellowship