Russell Nylen

Russell Nylen is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology. He studies a conflict of land-use in the Atlantic Forest within the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The particular conflict he is studying is between a Brazilian bauxite mining corporation (CBA), a reforestation NGO (Iracambi), and a movement of farmers fighting for land sovereignty (MAM). His interest in this topic goes back to his childhood, as he was partially raised in this region and witnessed the destructive nature of these mining operations firsthand. Now he hopes to draw from that experience to complicate the dialogue of conservation, sustainable agriculture, and the movement for greener forms of energy production that depend on the extraction of minerals such as bauxite. With a background in activism and development programs such as AmeriCorps and Peace Corps, his goal is to conduct research that can be utilized to aid development projects and movements to better understand the impacts on the surrounding community.