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Rebecca Clausen a professor of Sociology and Human Services at Fort Lewis College. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the Environmental Studies Program. She joined the college in 2008 from the University of Oregon, where she was a graduate teaching fellow in sociology and environmental studies. Clausen is an environmental sociologist whose research interests include the social drivers of environmental change, the political economy of global food systems, and marine fishery degradation. Her current research focuses on the social and emotional impacts of the 2015 Gold King Mine Spill to farming communities on the Navajo Nation.
Dr. Clausen actively publishes her research in journals such as Sustainability and Society and Natural Resources. In 2015, Clausen co-authored and published The Tragedy of the Commodity: Oceans, Fisheries, and Aquaculture which contributed to defining a new field of Marine Sociology. She is a reviewer for several journals, including the American Sociological Review, Conservation Biology, and Sociology of Development.
Dr. Clausen is actively involved in college committees such as the Institutional Review Board. She teaches a summer field course, Ecology and Society, and travels with students for five weeks to different communities around the Four Corners. She is an advisor for the FLC Sociology Club, which runs the Grub Hub, a student-run food bank for FLC students.
“The Tragedy of the Commodity: Oceans, Fisheries, and Aquaculture,” co-author, Rutgers University Press, 2015
"Sustainability and Environmental Sociology: Putting the Economy in its Place and Moving Toward an Integrative Socio-Ecology," co-author, Sustainability Journal, 2016
“Metabolic Rifts and Restoration: Agricultural Crises and the Potential of Cuba’s Organic, Socialist Approach to Food Production,” co-author, World Review of Political Economy, 2015
“Capitalism and the Commodification of Salmon: From Wild Fish to a Genetically Modified Species,” co-author, Monthly Review, 2014
“The Tragedy of the Commodity and the Farce of AquAdvantage Salmon,” co-author, Development and Change, 2012
“Fishy Business: Genetic Engineering and Salmon Aquaculture,” co-author, in Genetically Modified Organisms in Foods, Elsevier, 2015
“The Tragedy of the Commodity and the Overexploitation of Mediterranean Bluefin Tuna,” co-author, in Environmental Sociology: From Analysis to Action, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2013 “Food, Forests and Freshwater: A World-System Analysis of Environmental Impact,” in Routledge Handbook of World-Systems Analysis, New York: Routledge, 2012
“Listen to Your Gut,” [Review of the book; Greed to Green: Solving Climate Change and Remaking the Economy], Monthly Review, 2013
“Time to Pay the Piper: The Accumulation of Debt in Patriarchal Capitalism.” [Review of the book; EcoSufficiency and Global Justice], Monthly Review, 2010
“AquAdvantage Salmon, The Tragedy of the Commodity, and the Biological Speed-Up,” co-author, presented at the Society for Human Ecology, Bar Harbor, Maine, 2014
“The Tragedy of the Commodity and the Farce of AquAdvantage Salmon,” presented at the International Institute of Social Sciences ‘Nature, Inc.’ Conference, The Hague, The Netherlands, 2011
“Tragedy of the Treadmill: Examining oceanic degradation in The Mediterranean Bluefin tuna fishery and development of offshore aquaculture,” presented at the Annual American Sociological Association Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, 2010