Sarah Ebel, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Environmental Social Sciences
Location
Dr. Sarah Ebel is a cultural anthropologist who specializes in studying the intersection between governance, adaptation, and social change, analyzing the relationships between individuals, institutions, and the ecosystem at different scales in socio-ecological systems undergoing environmental change. Her work focuses on understanding opportunities for the transformation of governance and adaptation in a rapidly changing oceanscape in southern Chile. She is also starting a research avenue at 91AV to examine how environmental, economic, and cultural factors impact how fiddleheads, a local food, are informally managed and harvested on private and public land. Through these research programs, she seeks to understand the complex factors which impact both formal and informal governance and communities dependent upon natural resources. Her intention with this work is to inform environmental governance and adaptation pathways to achieve resilient socio-ecological systems.
Dr. Ebel received her Ph.D. in Anthropology and Environmental Policy from the University of Maine. She loves working with students, and if you are undergraduate or graduate student interested in environmental anthropology, environmental policy, Latin America, Maine, and/or natural resource management, please feel free to reach out.
Credentials
Education
Research
Selected publications
Lamar, S., Burnham, M., Metcalf, A. L., Ebel, S. A., Graves, D. M., & Sundstrom, A. (2024). Understanding the Hidden Costs and Benefits of Living with Grizzly Bears in Montana. Society & Natural Resources, 1-19.
Ebel, S.A. and + Ortman, B. (2024) How sociopolitical histories and lifeways impact the formation of 'good governance' in the restoration of anadromous fish in the Columbia River Basin. Society and Natural Resources, 37(6): 1-20. Impact Factor 3.024.
Ebel, S.A., Burnham, M., and +Reynolds, J. (2023). Examining the conditions that activate linking social capital to transition environmental governance: Empirical insights from Chile’s coast. Regional Environmental Change 23:6. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-022-01992-2 . Impact Factor: 4.704.
Ebel, S.A. (2022). Transformación y resiliencia en el mar: Cómo los pescadores transforman su bienestar y la gobernanza para dar forma a la resiliencia socio-ecológica en el sur de Chile. In ´¡³¾Ã©°ù¾±³¦²¹ Profunda: Visones y convergencias en la oceanografÃa social del continente, eds. Nemer E. Narchi y Christine M. Beitl. ISBN: 978-607-544-166-5.
Ebel, S. A. (2020). Moving Beyond Co-Management: Opportunities and Limitations for Enabling Transitions to Polycentric Governance in Chile’s Territorial User Rights in Fisheries Policy. International Journal of the Commons, 14(1). Impact Factor 1.792.
Research interests
Environmental Policy, Political Ecology, Environmental Justice, Environmental Anthropology, Economic Anthropology, Climate Change Adaptation, Marine Conservation, Fisheries and Coastal Management, Livelihoods, Natural Resource Governance Institutions, Gender and the Commons