Dr Sian Sullivan

Senior Lecturer in Environment and Development

2008 Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
1998 PhD Anthropology (University College London)
Thesis: People, plants and practice in drylands: sociopolitical and ecological dynamics of resource use by Damara farmers in arid north-west Namibia.
Online: http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1317514/
1993 BSc (First Class) Anthropology & Geography (University College London)

Contact details

Department of Geography, Environment and Development Studies
Birkbeck, University of London
Room 303
32 Tavistock Square
London
WC1H 9EZ

Email: s.sullivan@bbk.ac.uk
Tel: + 44 (0)20 3073 8456
Twitter: @SianSullivanUK
Personal Website: http://siansullivan.net

Profile

Academic Background
Sian Sullivan joined Birkbeck in autumn 2007 as a Lecturer in Environment and Development. She convenes and teaches modules in Cultural Landscapes and Environment and Development, and is the GEDS representative on the SSHP and College Ethics Committees.
Sian’s first degree was in Anthropology and Geography (1993), and her PhD was in Anthropology (1998), both completed at University College London. She then held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in the Anthropology Dept. at the School of Oriental and African Studies, followed by a Lectureship in Environment and Development at King’s College London, a Research fellowship at the ESRC-funded Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR) at Warwick University, and a Lectureship in Environment and Development at the School for International Development at the University of East Anglia. She has been a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2008.
With colleagues at Manchester University, Dartmouth College USA, and the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Sian is currently a Co-Investigator on a major research grant awarded by the Leverhulme Trust and entitled Human, non-human and environmental value systems: an impossible frontier (RP2012-V-041) (full award, £587,269, 2012-2016). From (2010-2011), she was a core member of an AHRC-funded research network entitled Spectacular Environmentalisms: Media, Celebrity and the Environment (AH/H039279/1), an initiative concerned in part with public engagement regarding media representations of wildlife and ‘nature’ (see http://www.studygreen.wordpress.com). In 2008, and with the assistance of a Research Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Sian collaborated with Prof. Jim Igoe, Dartmouth College USA, to inaugurate a network of researchers, practitioners and activists concerned with the environmental justice implications that can be associated with biodiversity conservation initiatives (see www.justconservation.org). From 2005-2007, and with colleagues at the Warwick Business School and School of Management, Essex University, Sian held an ESRC grant to study social movements and alternative media production (Non-Governmental Public Action (NGPA) Research Programme, Research Grant RES-155-25-0029, £45k) – this was graded as ‘outstanding’ in the ESRC in the Council’s end of award review.
Introduction
Prior to attending university, Sian lived on a protected area in Swaziland, Southern Africa. Here, she learned firsthand of the tensions that can arise between establishing landscapes as protected areas for biodiversity conservation, and the cultural landscapes and livelihoods of local people. Her academic research started as an undergraduate student through ethnoecology projects in Zambia (1991) and Namibia (1992), from which work was published in the journal Economic Botany. This interest in indigenous cultural knowledge of landscapes was fostered through doctoral research with KhoeSān peoples in north-west Namibia. Witnessing the establishment of new neoliberal approaches to conservation known as Community-Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM), in a context of concern regarding the degradation effects of local resource-use practices, led to interests in both ‘neoliberal conservation’ – whereby markets are seen as the best way to resolve contradictions between livelihoods and conservation, and social movements – whereby affected peoples contest hegemonic neoliberal discourses, institutional structures and associated subjectivities. Currently Sian is researching the ways in which financial terms, categories and assumptions are determining how it is possible to know nonhuman nature - through concepts such as ‘ecosystem services’ and ‘natural capital’, and through institutional structures that seek to ‘financialise nature’ so as to engender green economic growth. In 2012 she contributed to policy debates in this area through writing reports on biodiversity offsets in the UK (for the green policy think tank, the Green House http://tinyurl.com/d3o5t34) and on the financialisation of biodiversity conservation (for the Third World Network http://tinyurl.com/bl5huxn). Theoretically, her work is inspired by the writings of Michel Foucault, Gille Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Hélène Cixous, Pierre Clastres and Karl Marx, but amongst her most provocative teachers have been the Damara / ≠Nū Khoen people from whom she learns in Namibia.

Research and Teaching

Research Interests
Sian's research interest include:
cultural landscapes and socionature geographies
neoliberal biodiversity conservation and the financialisation of nature
biodiversity offsetting
political ecology
globalisation, social movements and the production of subjectivity
KhoeSan ethnography and culturenature ontologies; shamanism, animism and vital materialism
constructions of value
Teaching
Module initiator, convenor and teacher for Cultural Landscapes (Masters) and Environment and Development (3^rd and 4^th year Undergraduate)
Additional teaching: sessions on qualitative methods for Methods, Analysis and Techniques (2^nd year Undergraduate) and on biodiversity conservation in Environmental Science for Environmental Managers (Masters)
Supervision
Sian is currently supervising a number of MPhil/PhD projects at Birkbeck:

The making of ‘green greece’ ? A political ecology analysis of economic crisis, ‘green growth’ and neoliberal conservation. Christina Zoi Siamanta (full-time) started 2011, upgrade 2013.
The making of biodiversity value in UK biodiversity offsetting. Leverhulme fully-funded PhD studentship, Louise Carver (full-time) started 2013.
Analysis of sustainable development in transitional economies: the cases of Kazakhstan and Russia. Marzhan Thomas (part-time) started 2009, upgrade 2011
Local ecological knowledge for resilience: an analysis of fishing communities in Lakshwadeep, India. Andrea Deri (part-time) started 2010

She is also a member of the PhD committee for Jonathan Benabou’s (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris), thesis on community conservation and Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) in Namibia.
Sian has been an examiner for the following PhD theses:

Encountering corporate responsibility: mining, development and conservation in south eastern Madagascar. Antonie Kraemer, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 2012.
Knowing the landscape: science, people and power relations in Namaqualand, South Africa. Eirin Hongslo, NORAGRIC, Norway, public defence, 2011.
Exposure to drought: adaptive strategies amongst rural natural resource dependent societies in Africa. Florence Crick, Oxford Univ., 2007.
The dynamics of savanna ecosystems and management in Borana, southern Ethiopia. Ayana Angassa, NORAGRIC, Norway, public defence, 2007.
Fortune and loss in an environment of violence: living with chronic instability in south Turkana, Kenya. Jeremy Lind, King’s College London, 2006.
International arenas for domestic environmental problems? The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation and public participation in the grey agenda in Mexico. José Eduardo Rolón Sanchez, School of International Development, University of East Anglia, 2006.
Reconceptualising institutional interplay: a discursive analysis of agricultural biodiversity. Sirkku Juhola, School of International Development, University of East Anglia, 2006.

Sian also supervises Undergraduate and Masters dissertations for GEDS environmental and development studies degrees.

Publications

Books monographs & edited volumes

Sullivan, S. 2012 Financialisation, Biodiversity Conservation and Equity: Some Currents and Concerns. Environment and Development Series 16, Penang Malaysia: Third World Network. ISBN 978-967-5412-69-1 http://twnside.org.sg/title/end/pdf/end16.pdf (item deposited with BIROn)
Hannis, M. and Sullivan, S. 2012 Offsetting Nature? Habitat Banking and Biodiversity Offsets in the English Land Use Planning System. Dorset: Green House. ISBN 978-0-9569545-7-2 http://www.greenhousethinktank.org/files/greenhouse/home/Offsetting_nature_inner_final.pdf http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6031/
Igoe, J. and Sullivan, S. 2009 Problematizing Neoliberal Biodiversity Conservation: Displaced and Disobedient Knowledges, London: IIED (item deposited with BIROn).
Böhm, S., Sullivan, S. and Reyes, O. (eds.) 2005 The organisation and politics of Social Forums, Guest Edited Special Issue, ephemera: theory and practice in organization, 5(2): 98-442. http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/5-2/5-2ephemera-may05.pdf http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6034/
Stott, P. and Sullivan, S. (eds.) 2000 Political Ecology: Science, Myth and Power. London: Edward Arnold. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6035/
Sullivan, S. 1996 The ‘communalization’ of former commercial farmland: perspectives from Damaraland and implications for land reform. Windhoek: Social Sciences Division of the Multidisciplinary Research Centre, University of Namibia, Research Report 25. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6036/

Journal Articles

Sullivan, S. In press. After the green rush? Biodiversity offsets, uranium power and the ‘calculus of casualties’ in greening growth. Human Geography. (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. In press. Nature on the Move III: (Re)countenancing an animate nature. New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Enquiry (item deposited with BIROn)
Martin, A., McGuire, S. and Sullivan, S. 2013 Global environmental justice and biodiversity conservation. The Geographical Journal doi: 10.1111/geoj.12018 (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2013 Banking nature? The spectacular financialisation of environmental conservation. Antipode 45(1):198-217. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2012.00989.x http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/4957/
Büscher, B., Sullivan, S., Brockington, D., Igoe, J. and Neves, K. 2012Towards a synthesized critique of neoliberal conservation. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 23(2): 4-30. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/4959/
Pawliczek, J. and Sullivan, S. 2011 Conservation and concealment in SpeciesBanking.com, US: an analysis of neoliberal performance in the species offsetting industry. Environmental Conservation 38(4): 435-444 Themed Issue on Payments for Ecosystem Services http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/4958/
Sullivan, S., Spicer, A. and Böhm, S. 2011 Becoming global (un)civil society: struggles in the global Indymedia network. Globalizations 8(4):703-717. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/4852/
Sullivan, S. 2011 Conservation is sexy! What makes this so, and what does this make? An engagement with Celebrity and the Environment. Conservation and Society 9(4): 334-345. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6011/
Frenzel, F., Böhm, S., Quinton, P., Spicer, A., Sullivan, S. and Young, Z. 2011 Alternative media in North and South - a comparison: the cases of IFIWatchnet and Indymedia in Africa. Environment and Planning A 43: 1173-1189 http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6012/
Sullivan, S. 2011 Supposing truth is a woman? A commentary. International Journal of Feminist Politics 13(2): 231-237. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6014/
Sullivan, S. 2010 ‘Ecosystem service commodities’ – a new imperial ecology? Implications for animist immanent ecologies, with Deleuze and Guattari. New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics 69: 111-128, Special issue entitled Imperial Ecologies. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6015/
Igoe, J. Sullivan, S. and Brockington, D. 2010 Problematizing neoliberal biodiversity conservation: displaced and disobedient knowledge. Current Conservation 3(3): 4-7. (item deposited on BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2009 Green capitalism, and the cultural poverty of constructing nature as service-provider. Radical Anthropology 3: 18-27. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6016/
Sullivan, S. 2006 The elephant in the room? Problematizing ‘new’ (neoliberal) biodiversity conservation. Forum for Development Studies 33(1):105-135. ((the second most cited FDS article according to the journal website! 28 January 2013) http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6017/
Sullivan, S. 2005 An other world is possible? On representation, rationalism and romanticism in Social Forums. Special Issue ephemera: theory and practice in organization 5(2): 370-392. http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/5-2/5-2ssullivan.pdf http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6018/
Sullivan, S. 2005 Riflessioni sulla ‘nuova’ (neoliberista) protezione ambientale (con casi pratici dalla Namibia), (Reflections on ‘new’ (neoliberal) conservation (with case material from Namibia, southern Africa), Africa e Orienti 2: 102-115. (listed on BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2003 Frontline(s). ephemera: critical dialogues on organization 3(1): 68-89. http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/3-1/3-1sullivan.pdf http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6020/
Sullivan, S. and Rohde, R. 2002 On non-equilibrium in arid and semi-arid grazing systems, Journal of Biogeography 29(12): 1595-1618. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6021/
Sullivan, S. 2001 Difference, identity and access to official discourses: Hai||om, ‘Bushmen’, and a recent Namibian ethnography. Anthropos 96: 179-192. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6022/
Sullivan, S. 2001. Danza e diversità: copri, movimento ed esperienza nella trance-dance dei Khoisan e nei rave occidentali. (On dance and difference: bodies, movement and experience in Khoesān trance-dancing – perceptions of ‘a raver’). Africa e Mediterraneo Cultura e Societa 37: 15-22. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6023/
Sullivan, S. 1999 The impacts of people and livestock on topographically diverse open wood-and shrub-lands in arid north-west Namibia. Global Ecology and Biogeography (Special Issue on Degradation of Open Woodlands) 8: 257-277. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6024/
Sullivan, S. 1999 Folk and formal, local and national: Damara cultural knowledge and community-based conservation in southern Kunene, Namibia. Cimbebasia 15: 1-28. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6025/
Konstant, T.L. and Sullivan, S. 1997 Human impacts on woody vegetation, and multivariate analysis: a case study based on data from Khowarib settlement, Kunene Region. Dinteria 25: 87-120. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6026/
Sullivan, S. 1996 Towards a non-equilibrium ecology: perspectives from an arid land. Guest Editorial, Journal of Biogeography 23: 1-5http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6027/
Sullivan, S., Konstant, T.L. and Cunningham, A.B. 1995 The impact of the utilization of palm products on the population structure of the Vegetable Ivory Palm (Hyphaene petersiana, Arecaceae) in north-central Namibia. Economic Botany 49(4): 357-370. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6028/
Konstant, T.L., Sullivan, S. and Cunningham, A.B. 1995 The effects of utilization by people and livestock on Hyphaene petersiana (Arecaceae) basketry resources in the palm savanna of north-central Namibia. Economic Botany 49(4): 345-356. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6029/

Book Chapters

Sullivan, S. Forthcoming. Nature on the Move III: (Re)countenancing an animate nature. In Büscher, B., Dressler, W. and Fletcher, R. (eds.) Nature™ Inc: New Frontiers of Environmental Conservation in the Neoliberal Age. Tucson: Arizona University Press.
Sullivan, S. and Homewood, K. Forthcoming. On non-equilibrium and nomadism: knowledge, diversity and global modernity in drylands (and beyond …), in Pimbert, M. (ed.) Reclaiming Knowledge for Diversity, London: Earthscan, Routledge.
Mueller, T. and Sullivan, S. In press. Making other worlds possible? Riots, movement and counterglobalisation, in Davies, M. (ed.) Disturbing the peace: Riot, Resistance and Rebellion in Europe, 1381 to the Present, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2012 On dance and difference: bodies, movement and experience in Khoesān trance-dancing – perspectives of a ‘raver’, pp. 371-377 in Anthropology in a Changing World. McGraw-Hill, New York. (Reprinted from Sullivan, S. 2001. Danza e diversità: copri, movimento ed esperienza nella trance-dance dei Khoisan e nei rave occidentali. (On dance and difference: bodies, movement and experience in Khoesān trance-dancing. Africa e Mediterraneo Cultura e Societa 37: 15-22). (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2012 Green: an activist film. pp. 41-42 (in ‘Studying Green’, ch. 4) in Blewitt, J. The Media, Animal Conservation and Environmental Education. London: Routledge. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6040/
Sullivan, S. 2009 Green capitalism, and the cultural poverty of constructing nature as service-provider, pp. 287-306 in Böhm, S. and Dabhi, S. (eds.) Upsetting the Offset: The Political Economy of Carbon Markets, Mayfly Books. (Reprinted from 2009 Green capitalism, and the cultural poverty of constructing nature as service-provider, Radical Anthropology 3: 18-27). http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6042/
Frenzel, F. and Sullivan, S. 2009 Globalization from below? ICTs and democratic development in the project ‘Indymedia Africa’, pp. 165-182 in Mudhai, F. (ed.) African Media and the Digital Public Sphere, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6043/ scan to be uploaded
Sullivan, S. 2008 ‘Viva Nihilism!’ On militancy and machismo in (anti-)globalisation protest, pp. 203-243 in Devetak, R. and Hughes, C. (eds.) Globalization of Political Violence: Globalization’s Shadow, Warwick Studies in Globalisation, Routledge, London. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6044/
Sullivan, S. 2008 Conceptualising glocal organisation: from rhizome to E=mc² in becoming post-human, pp. 149-166 in Kornprobst, M., Pouliot, V., Shah, N. and Zaiotti, R. (eds.) Metaphors of Globalisation: Mirrors, Magicians and Mutinies, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6045/
Sullivan, S. 2006 On dance and difference: bodies, movement and experience in Khoesān trance-dancing, pp. 234-241 in Haviland, W.A., Gordon R., and Vivanco, L. (eds.) Talking About People: Readings in Contemporary Cultural Anthropology, 4^th Edition. McGraw-Hill, New York. Reprinted from Sullivan, S. 2001. Danza e diversità: copri, movimento ed esperienza nella trance-dance dei Khoisan e nei rave occidentali. Africa e Mediterraneo Cultura e Societa 37: 15-22 http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6046/
Sullivan, S. 2005 ‘We are heartbroken and furious!’ Rethinking violence and the (anti-)globalisation movements’, pp. 175-194 in Maiguashca, B. and Eschle, C. (eds.) Critical Theories, World Politics and ‘the Anti-globalisation Movement’, London, Routledge. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6047/
Sullivan, S. 2005 Detail and dogma, data and discourse: food-gathering by Damara herders and conservation in arid north-west Namibia, pp. 63-99 in Homewood, K. (ed.) Rural Resources and Local Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa. James Currey and University of Wisconsin Press, Oxford. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6048/
Sullivan, S. 2005 Riflessioni sulla ‘nuova’ (neoliberista) protezione ambientale (con casi pratici dalla Namibia), (Reflections on ‘new’ (neoliberal) conservation (with case material from Namibia, southern Africa), Africa e Orienti 2: 102-115. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6019/
Sullivan, S. and Homewood, K. 2004 Natural resources: use, access, tenure and management, pp. 118-166 in Bowyer-Bower, T. and Potts, D. (eds.) Eastern and Southern Africa, new regional text commission by the Institute of British Geographers’ Developing Areas Research Group, London, Addison Wesley Longman. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6049/
Sullivan, S. 2003 Protest, conflict and litigation: dissent or libel in resistance to a conservancy in north-west Namibia, pp. 69-86 in Berglund, E. and Anderson, D. (eds.) Ethnographies of Conservation: Environmentalism and the Distribution of Privilege. Oxford, Berghahn Press. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6051/
Brockington, D. and Sullivan, S. 2003 Qualitative research, pp. 57-74 in Scheyvens, R. and Storey, D. (eds.) Development Fieldwork: A Practical Guide. London, Sage Publications. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6052/
Sullivan, S. 2002 How sustainable is the communalising discourse of ‘new’ conservation? The masking of difference, inequality and aspiration in the fledgling ‘conservancies’ of Namibia, pp. 158-187 In Chatty, D. and Colchester, M. (eds.) Conservation and Mobile Indigenous people: Displacement, Forced Settlement and Sustainable Development. Oxford, Berghahn Press. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6053/
Sullivan, S. 2002 ‘How can the rain fall in this chaos?’ Myth and metaphor in representations of the north-west Namibian landscape, pp. 255-265, 315-317 in LeBeau, D. and Gordon, R.J. (eds.) Challenges for Anthropology in the ‘African Renaissance’: A Southern African Contribution, University of Namibia Press, Publication Number 1. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6054/
Sullivan, S. 2000 Getting the science right, or introducing science in the first place? Local ‘facts’, global discourse – ‘desertification’ in north-west Namibia, pp. 15-44 in Stott, P. and Sullivan, S. (eds.) Political Ecology: Science, Myth and Power. London, Edward Arnold. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6055/
Stott, P. and Sullivan, S. 2000 Introduction, pp. 1-11 in Stott, P. and Sullivan, S. (eds.) (2000) Political ecology: Science, Myth and Power. London, Edward Arnold. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6056/
Sullivan, S. 2000 Gender, ethnographic myths and community-based conservation in a former Namibian ‘homeland’, pp. 142-164 in Hodgson, D. (ed.) Rethinking Pastoralism in Africa: Gender, Culture and the Myth of the Patriarchal Pastoralist. Oxford, James Currey. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6057/

Reviews

Sullivan, S. 2012 Living amongst ‘things of value’: Stephan Schwartzman, indigenous restitution, and forest (carbon) conservation. Invited Review Essay, American Anthropologist 114(4): 683-685. (item deposited with BIROn)
Young, Z. and Sullivan, S. 2009 Review of DDS Community Media Trust, P.V. Satheesh and Michel Pimbert (2008) ‘Affirming life and diversity. Rural images and voices on food sovereignty in south India’, PLA notes 60:196-198. IIED, London. (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2007 Review of Goodridge, J. 1999 ‘Rhythm and timing of movement in performance: drama, dance and ceremony’, Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd, London. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13(3): 748-749. (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2003 Review of Anderson, D. and Broch-Due, V. (eds.) 1999 ‘The Poor are not Us: Poverty and Pastoralism in Eastern Africa’, James Currey, East African Educational Publishing and Ohio University Press, Oxford, Nairobi and Athens. The Journal of Modern African Studies. 41(4). (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2001 Review of Mistry, J. 2000 ‘World savannas: ecology and human use’. Prentice Hall, London. Progress in Physical Geography, 25(2): 299-300. (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2001 Review of Kinahan, Jill. 2000 ‘Cattle for beads: the archaeology of historical contact and trade on the Namib coast’. Dept. of Archaeology & Ancient History and Namibia Archaeological Trust, University of Uppsala and Windhoek. Cimbebasia 17: 258-260. (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2000 Gambling with risk. Review of Mortimore, M. 1998 ‘Roots in the African Dust: sustaining the drylands’ Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 6(4): 751-752. (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 1994 Savanna details with a paradigm shift. Review of An African savanna. Scholes, R.J. and Walker, B.H. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Journal of Biogeography, 4(12): 448.

Articles in Working Paper Series

Sullivan, S. 2011 Banking Nature? The financialisation of environmental conservation. OAC Press Working Paper Series #8, Open Anthropology Cooperative Press. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6063/
Sullivan, S., Spicer, A. and Böhm, S. 2009 Becoming global (un)civil society: struggles in the global Indymedia network, LSE Non-Governmental Public Action (NGPA) Research Paper Series 42. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6064/
Salter, K. and Sullivan, S. 2008 ‘Shell to Sea’ in Ireland: building social movement potency, Non-Governmental Public Action (NGPA) Working Paper Series 5. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6065/
Sullivan, S. 2005 Viva Nihilism!’ On militancy and machismo in (anti-)globalisation protest, CSGR Working Paper no. 158/05. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6066/
Sullivan, S. 2004 ‘We are heartbroken and furious!’ Rethinking violence and the (anti-)globalisation movements (#2), CSGR Working Paper no. 133/04. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6067/
Sullivan, S. and Brockington, D. 2004 Qualitative methods in globalisation studies: or, saying something about the world without counting or inventing it, CSGR Working Paper no. 139/04. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6068/
Sullivan, S. and Homewood, K. 2003 On non-equilibrium and nomadism: knowledge, diversity and global modernity in drylands (and beyond …). CSGR Working Paper 122/03. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6069/
Sullivan, S. 2003 ‘We are heartbroken and furious!’ Engaging with violence in the (anti-)globalisation movement(s). CSGR Working Paper 123/03. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6070/
Craven, P. and Sullivan, S. 2002 Inventory and review of ethnobotanical research in Namibia: first steps towards a central ‘register’ of published indigenous plant knowledge. NBRI Contributions 3. National Botanical Research Institute, Windhoek. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6071/

Other Publications

Sullivan, S. 2011 Green: going beyond ‘the money shot’. Web article. http://studyinggreen.wordpress.com/green-going-beyond-the-money-shot-2/
Sullivan, S. 2011 A technological recipe for making nature the friend of capital. The Land Summer: 44-46. (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2011 On bioculturalism, shamanism & unlearning the creed of growth. Geography and You (commissioned article) March-April: 15-19. (item deposited with BIROn)
Homewood, K., Brockington, D. and Sullivan, S. 2010 Alternative view of Serengeti road. Letter to Nature 467: 788-789. (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2010 Ecosystem service commodities, Geography and You (India). (commissioned article).
Sullivan, S. 2009 An ecosystem at your service? The Land, Winter 2008/9: 21-23. (item deposited with BIROn)
Sullivan, S. 2008 Bioculturalism, shamanism & economics. Resurgence 250, online. (commissioned article). (item deposited with BIROn)

Encyclopedia Entries

alt.media.res collective 2007 ‘Indymedia’, in Anderson, G. and Herr, K. (eds.) Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice, London: Sage Publications.
Sullivan, S. 2007 Blogs, in Robertson, R. and Scholte, J.A. (eds.) Encyclopedia of globalization, Routledge, London.
Sullivan, S. 2004 Namibia, in Skutsch, Karl (ed.) Encyclopedia of the World’s Minorities, London, Routledge.
Sullivan, S. 2004 Damara, in Skutsch, Karl (ed.) Encyclopedia of the World’s Minorities, London, Routledge

Other Media

2011 part of collective of scholars that has set up the online study resource http://studyinggreen.wordpress.com
Böhm, S and Sullivan, S. 2005 Sensing the Forum: a collage, Special Issue ephemera: theory and practice in organization, 5(2) http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/5-2/5-2collage.htm

Lectures

12/12 Presentations on ‘A typology of value(s)’ and ‘Biodiversity offsetting’ at Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Value Research Workshop, University of Manchester.
11/12 Discussant for panel on Resistance to Environmental Intervention, at the Norwegian Association for Development Research conference Development for a Finite Planet: Grassroots Perspectives and Responses to Climate Change, Resource Extraction and Economic Development.
08/12 Keynote paper, ‘Financialisation, biodiversity conservation and equity: some currents and concerns’, Critical Finance Conference, Essex University.
Paper entitled ‘After the green rush? Some distributive implications of new value grabbing in conservation banking markets’ presented at:
02/12 panel on ‘Grabbing 'Green': Markets, Environmental Governance and the Materialization of Natural Capital’, at the American Association of Geographers international conference, New York.
11/11 seminar, School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester
11/11 My work formed the basis for a Society and Environment Research Group seminar, University of Manchester.
11/11 Paper entitled ‘Trance Namibia? Juxtapositions of music, dance and desire in a desert landscape’, presented at Listening for a Change: Environment, Music, Action, British Forum for Ethnomusicology One-Day Conference in association with the Institute of Music Research, Senate House, University of London School of Advanced Studies, at School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London.
08/11 co-author on paper entitled ‘Conflicts we see and conflicts we don’t: biodiversity conservation through and ecosystem services framework’, with Adrian Martin and Shawn McGuire, ACES 2011, Conservation conflicts: strategies for coping with a changing world, University of Aberdeen.
06/11 ‘Nature on the Move III: (Re)-countenancing an animated nature?’, Paper presented at the international conference Nature^TM Inc.: Questioning the market panacea in environmental policy and conservation. Institute for Social Studies, The Hague.
Paper entitled, ‘Banking nature: the spectacular financialisation of environmental conservation, with Marx and Foucault’, given at:
03/11 Online seminar for the Open Anthropology Cooperative http://tinyurl.com/awkdhgv
02/11 Political Ecology seminar series, University of Cambridge.
12/10 Invited seminar for the Nature and Capital series, University of Lancaster.
11/10 Invited discussant at the American Anthropological Association annual conference, New Orleans, for panel entitled ‘Cashing in on conservation’.
09/10 Participant in AHRC research network meeting on Spectacular Environmentalisms: Media, Celebrity and the Environment, King’s College London. Presentation given on ‘Spectacular frontiers in environmental conservation’.
05/10 ‘The environmentality of 'Earth Incorporated': on contemporary primitive accumulation and the financialisation of environmental conservation’, presented as part of the panel 'Appropriation for appreciation: exploring the changing nature of neoliberal conservation for Nature-Society interactions' at the international conference A Brief Environmental History of Neoliberalism, Lund University, Sweden.
02/10 Paper entitled ‘Ecosystem service commodities ~ a new imperial ecology? From ‘carbon earth’ to ‘earth incorporated’’, presented at a workshop on environmental politics organised by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Environment and Society and the Business School at Essex University.
01/10 Key Participant in policy roundtable discussion on Climate Change, Conflict and Vulnerability, organised by the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
11/09 Invited session chair at the conference Deleuze & Activism, Centre for Critical & Cultural Theory, University or Cardiff, and paper presented entitled ‘(Re)activating animism in environmental politics: Deleuze, Guattari, and human/non-human potencies’.
06/09 Paper presented at the Conference Living Landscapes, Aberystwyth University (with Low, C.), entitled ‘Shades of the rainbow serpent: a KhoeSān animal between myth and landscape in Southern Africa’.
02/09 ‘Becoming global (un)civil society: struggles in the global Indymedia network’, presented with A. Spicer at the conference Beyond NGOS: Civil and Uncivil Society in the 21^st Century, organised by the Centre for Civil Society, LSE and Civil Society & New Forms of Governance in Europe (CINEFOGO), London.
10/08 Invited to speak on ‘Markets for biodiversity and ecosystems: reframing nature for capitalist expansion?’ in workshop on Rethinking conservation through the lens of food sovereignty: implications for policy and practice’, organised by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) at the 4^th World Park’s Congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Barcelona, 7-12 October.
09/08 Invited session Chair at ESRC-funded Conservation and Capitalism Symposium, School of Public Policy University of Manchester, 9-10 September.
04/08 Invited panelist for session entitled ‘The role of social scientists in critical civic issues’, at the American Museum of Natural History’s Symposium on Sustaining Cultural and Biological Diversity in a Rapidly Changing World: Lessons for Global Policy, New York, April 2-5. Paper presented entitled ‘On bioculturalism and unlearning the creed of growth’.
09/07 ‘Between a rock and a hard place! Negotiating academia and activism in ethnographic approaches to globalising social movements’, Methodologies of Globalisation workshop, Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick.
03/06 ‘Conceptualising glocal organisation: from rhizome to E=mc² in becoming post-human’, workshop conference on Metaphors of Globalization: Mirrors, Magicians and Mutinies, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto.
02/05 ‘‘Viva Nihilism!’ On militancy and machismo in (anti-)globalisation protest’, presented at University of Sussex Interdisciplinary Seminar Series on Rights, Justice, Violence and War.
12/04 Invited participant in ESRC seminar on Biodiversity and Development, Dept. Geography, University of Leicester.
07/04 Discussant and key participant in workshop on Land, Livelihoods, Democracy and Conservation: Conflicting Interests and Emerging Realities in Southern Africa, Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), School of Government, University of the Western Cape, South Africa, and the research programme Arid Climate, Adaptation and Cultural Innovation in Africa (ACACIA), Universität zu Köln, Germany.
07/03 Key participant in workshop on Rangelands at equilibrium and nonequilibrium organised by the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), School of Government, University of the Western Cape, South Africa, in Durban, South Africa.
02/03 Key participant and chairperson for CSGR 'interdisciplinary and intercultural symposium' entitled Globalisation Studies: Past and Future.
06/02 Leader of afternoon session entitled ‘Anthropology and activism in environment and development: do we have a right to rock the boat?’ for workshop on Professional Practice in Anthropology: Emergent and Ethical Dilemmas in the Anthropology of Policy. Organised by the Association of Social Anthropologists (ASA) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
‘How sustainable is the communalising discourse of ‘new’ conservation? The masking of difference, inequality and aspiration in the fledgling ‘conservancies’ of north-west Namibia’, presented at:
02/01 Anthropology Dept. at Köln University, Germany.
09/99 Conference on ‘displacement, forced settlement and conservation’, Refugee Studies Programme, University of Oxford.
‘“How can the rain fall in this chaos?” Myth and metaphor in representations of the north-west Namibian landscape’ presented at:
11/00 Environmental Issues and History Seminar at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University.
06/00 Conference on ‘Environmental Values’, University College Cork, Ireland.
05/00 Association for Anthropology in Southern Africa (AASA) conference in Windhoek, Namibia
‘Vegetation use in a former Namibian “homeland”: some assumptions and implications for policy’, presented at:
01/00 the Anthropology Dept., McGill University, Montréal, Canada.
09/98 Dept. Anthropology, Canterbury University, autumn seminar series on Issues in Anthropology, Conservation and Biodiversity.
11/99 ‘Perfume and pastoralism: gender, ethnographic myths and community-based conservation in north-west Namibia’, lecture given at the Centre for African Studies, University of Edinburgh.
1999 Convenor/editor for seminar series on Political Ecology, Dept. Geography, SOAS, Spring Term 1999.
01/99 ‘How inclusive is Community-Based Natural Resources Management? Ethnographic myths, gender and power in a former Namibian “homeland”’, SOAS Dept. of Anthropology and Sociology Research in Progress Seminar Series.
12/97 ‘The impacts of people and livestock on topographically diverse open wood- and shrub-lands in arid north-west Namibia’, paper presented as part of an international workshop on The Biogeography of Open/Savanna Woodlands in Africa, Geography Dept., Leeds University

Conferences Organised

06/11, member of Advisory Committee for international conference entitled Nature™ Inc? Questioning the Market Panacea in Environmental Policy and Conservation, 30 June – 2 July Institute for Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands.
05/08 International three-day research workshop called Problematizing Neoliberal Biodiversity Conservation: Displaced and Disobedient Knowledge, held in Washington DC, co-hosted with Jim Igoe and Katja Neves.
10/04 Radical Theory Forum organised to coincide with the European Social Forum in London, 100+ participants.
06/04 Workshop & roundtable on Social Forums and Civil Society organised at the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR), University of Warwick

Media

10/12 Quoted in Conniff, R. ‘What’s wrong with putting a price on nature?’ The Guardian online. http://tinyurl.com/afxgfzy
03/11 Interviewed for Costing the Earth series, episode on Carbon Trading, BBC Radio 4, broadcast 17/3/11.
03/11 Advisor for ‘Conservation’s Dirty Secrets’, Dispatches series, Channel 4 broadcast 20/6/11.
03/11 Public online seminar on my paper ‘Banking Nature? The financialisation of environmental conservation’ @ http://tinyurl.com/awkdhgv
07/2010 Public online discussion ‘Can Nature Be Monetized?’ by The Capital Institute http://tinyurl.com/2338arc, based on my conference paper ‘The environmentality of Earth Incorporated’ http://tinyurl.com/a4k8smf
2010-current Founder and advisor for the online information and campaign site ‘Just Conservation’, http://www.justconservation.org

Professional Membership

Association of Social Anthropologists
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

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