Brodie Ferguson

I'm an environmental anthropologist with training in demography and statistics currently conducting fieldwork in the Chocó region of Colombia. My projects are organized along the following two lines:

1. Demography of violence - This work employs a mix of quantitative and ethnographic methods to examine the implications of excess male mortality due to violence on the nature and timing of life history events in Colombia. In particular, it draws on ecological and life history theory to explore the ways in which violence at the community level relates to individual decisions by both men and women with respect to marriage, migration, and childbirth. This work is supported by an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award (#0753741) and carried out in collaboration with the Conflict Analysis Resource Center and the Program on Violence Prevention at the Universidad de Antioquia.
2. Conservation biology and natural resource management - This work explores the drivers of deforestation and land use change throughout the Chocó biogeographic region and its implications for the area's communities and biodiversity. It includes the design, certification, and implementation of a community-based payment for ecosystem services (PES) program based on climate change mitigation through avoided deforestation. More information on this project can be found here.