Dr. Christian Brannstrom

Research

Dr. Christian Brannstrom’s research focuses on nature-Society relations, in particular the historical geography of the environment and resource management in Brazil and Latin America. He also has a keen interest in environmental history and has edited a recent volume Territories, Commodities and Knowledges: Latin American Environmental History in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Institute for the Study of the Americas, London). In addition, Dr, Brannstrom is interested in changes in natural resource regimes, particularly the decentralization of policies for water resources, and the impacts of agricultural land uses on the environment in Brazil, particularly western Bahia. An ongoing project, “New Environmental Governance in Brazil”, developed by Dr. Brannstrom, analyzed types of governance regimes, evaluates the influence of state actors and civil society on water governance, and measures environmental outcomes of new governance regimes.

Projects

New Environmental Governance in Brazil - analyzes types of governance regimes, evaluates the influence of state actors and civil society on water governance, and measures environmental outcomes of new governance regimes.

The Making of an Irrigated Agricultural Landscape in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, 1900-1945” is planned as a book covering three major themes: (1) ideas, stressing the invention of the Lower Rio Grande Valley as a “Magic Valley,” an ethnically white agricultural paradise with abundant, cheap, and subservient Mexican labor; (2) water governance, focusing on the construction of the irrigation infrastructure by private firms and their conversion to quasi-public irrigation and water districts; and (3) land, emphasizing the clearing of shrubland and constructing the grapefruit commodity chain.

Grants

•  “Socioeconomic impacts of wind energy in Texas,” (as co-PI, with PI W. E. Jepson) TCU-NextEra Wind Initiative, awarded December 2008 - December 2010
• “The Making of an Irrigated Agricultural Landscape in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, 1900-1945,” TAMU Glasscock Center’s Faculty Travel to Archives/Field Work grant program, awarded May 2008
• National Science Foundation (Geography and Spatial Science, BCS-0647249), "A Q-Method Analysis of Environmental Governance in Brazil's Northeastern Soy

Selected Publications

• Brannstrom, C. 2010. “Forests for cotton: Institutions and organizations in Brazil’s mid-twentieth-century cotton boom,” Journal of Historical Geography (online)
• Brannstrom, C. 2010. “Environmental governance discourses in Brazil’s soy belt: A Q-method analysis,” Professional Geographer
• Brannstrom, C. (2009) “South America’s neoliberal agricultural frontiers: Places of environmental sacrifice or conservation opportunity?” Ambio 38(3): 141-9
• Filippi, A. M., Brannstrom, C., Dobreva, I., Cairns, D. M., and Kim, D. (2009) “Fuzzy ARTMAP classification of hyperspectral Hyperion data for savanna and agricultural vegetation discrimination in the Brazilian Cerrado,” GIScience & Remote Sensing 46(1): 1-23
• Brannstrom, C., Neuman, M. (2009) “Inventing the ‘Magic Valley’ of South Texas, 1905-1941,” Geographical Review 91(2): 123-45
• Brannstrom, C., et al. 2008. Land change in the Brazilian savanna (Cerrado), 1986-2002: Comparative analysis and land-use policy implications. Land Use Policy 25: 579-95
• Brannstrom, C., and Filippi, A.M. 2008. Classification of Cerrado (savanna) and agricultural land covers in North-Eastern Brazil's agricultural frontier. Geocarto International 23: 109-34
• Brannstrom, C., and Filippi, A.M. 2006. Environmental policies for modern agriculture? Evaluating the case of western Bahia state, Brazil. In Sustainable Development: National Aspirations, Local Implementation, eds. J. Hill, A. Terry and W. Woodland, 271-91. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.
• Brannstrom, C. 2006. Relações de trabalho na cotonicultura do Oeste Paulista: Uma visão do Arquivo do Fórum da Comarca de Assis. Patrimônio e Memória, 2 (1):1-16.
• Brannstrom, C. 2005. Environmental policy reform on north-eastern Brazil's agricultural frontier. Geoforum, 36 (2):257-71.
• Brannstrom, C. 2005. The timber trade in southeastern Brazil, 1920-1960. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 24 (3):288-310.
• Brannstrom, C. 2005. Was Brazilian industrialisation fuelled by wood? Evaluating São Paulo's energy hinterlands, 1900-1960. Environment & History, 11 (4):395-430.
• Brannstrom, C. 2004. Decentralising Brazilian water-resources management. European Journal of Development Research, 16 (1):214-34.
• Brannstrom, C., ed. 2004. Territories, Commodities and Knowledges: Latin American Environmental History in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. London: Institute for the Study of the Americas.
• Brannstrom, C. 2004. What kind of history for what kind of political ecology? Historical Geography, 32:71-87.
• Brannstrom, C., Clarke, J., and Newport, M. 2004. Civil society participation in the decentralisation of Brazil's water resources: Assessing participation in three states. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 25 (3):304-21.

Graduate Students

• Kellie Wilcox-Moore, MS Student (Chair)
• Nicole Persons, MS Student (Chair)