Christine Beitl, Ph.D.
 Office Address: S. Stevens Hall, Rm 228AMailing Address: Dept. of Anthropology 5773 S. Stevens Hall, Rm. 228A University of Maine Orono, Maine 04469Contact Information Phone: 207/581-1893 Email: christine.beitl@maine.edu Research Interests Research Projects Student Opportunities Degrees Florida International University, M.A. (Latin American and Caribbean Studies/Environmental Studies) Ohio University, B.A. (Spanish) Courses ANT 250: Conservation Anthropology ANT 300: Anthropological Theory ANT 553: Institutions and Common Pool Resources |
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Maine Faculty Associate, Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions Profile: Christine Beitl is a faculty member in the University of Maine’s Department of Anthropology, and the co-leader of an Emerging Opportunities project through the Sustainability Solutions Initiative. Her research within the Department of Anthropology broadly looks at the interactions between socio-political, ecological, and economic systems. She specializes in the study of common pool resources in coastal and marine environments, focusing on mangrove forests and their associated artisanal fisheries. She has used a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, ethnographic and fishery data, and geographic information systems to study human-environment interactions and to evaluate the social-ecological effects of collective action, property arrangements, civil society, customary norms in fishing, and coastal management policies in Ecuador. Her current research program focuses on livelihood adaptations, decision-making, and various aspects of fisheries management within the context of social-ecological change in Ecuador and Maine.Beitl’s SSI team builds on existing alliances with the lobster industry and engages other stakeholders working in the Gulf of Maine to assess social, ecological, and economic aspects of bycatch and the feasibility of bycatch reduction strategies in Maine’s lobster fishery.The team is working closely with lobstermen collaborators to explore the biological effects of barotrauma, survival rates, the viability of lobster traps as a possible mechanism for recompression, and the implications for fisheries management. Prior to working at the University of Maine, Beitl taught at both the University of Georgia and Emory University. She was also awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for research in Ecuador. Funding for Beitl’s research has come from an ADVANCE Rising Tide Center NSF grant, the Maine EPSCoR-NSF SSI, and the Wenner Gren Foundation, among others. Her work has been published in Human Ecology, World Development, the Journal of Political Ecology, and the International Journal of the Commons. Selected Publications C.M. Beitl, “Mobility in the Mangroves: Catch Rates, Daily Decisions, and Dynamics of Artisanal Fishing in a Coastal Commons,” Applied Geography (in press). C.M. Beitl, “Navigating Over Space and Time: Fishing Effort Allocation and the Development of Customary Norms in an Open-Access Mangrove Estuary in Ecuador,” Human Ecology 42, no. 3 (2014): 395-411. C.M. Beitl, “Adding Environment to the Collective Action Problem: Individuals, Civil Society, and the Mangrove-Fishery Commons in Ecuador,” World Development 56 (2014): 93-107. C.M. Beitl, “Shifting Policies, Access, and the Tragedy of Enclosures in Ecuadorian Mangrove Fisheries: Towards a Political Ecology of the Commons,” Journal of Political Ecology 19 (2012): 94-113. C.M. Beitl, “Cockles in Custody: The Role of Common Property Arrangements in the Ecological Sustainability of Mangrove Fisheries on the Ecuadorian Coast,” International Journal of the Commons 5, no. 2 (2011): 485-512. |