Eric Carter, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, USA. Eric’s principal areas of research and teaching are in political ecology, health geography, international development, and environmental history, with a regional focus on Latin America. Eric is the Chairperson of the HMGSG for the year 2010-2011.
Eric Carter was born and raised in California. He earned his BA in history from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1994, and his MS (1999) and PhD (2005) in Geography from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His dissertation examined the social and environmental dynamics of malaria control in Northwest Argentina from 1890 to the present. He spent two years at Millersville University of Pennsylvania before moving to Grinnell College in 2007. As part of the EKI (Expanding Knowledge Initiative) at Grinnell, Eric teaches an array of interdisciplinary courses that promote spatial and geographical perspectives in the curriculum, including Geographical Analysis and Cartography, Health Geography, and Global Development Studies, in addition to the Latin American Cultures course in Anthropology.
Eric’s Ph.D. thesis, co-winner of the 2006 Jacques May Thesis Prize in Medical Geography, examined the social and environmental dynamics of malaria control in Northwest Argentina from 1890 to the present. Portions of this thesis have been revised and published in the Journal of Historical Geography, Journal of Latin American Geography, Geoforum, and Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. In addition to this research project, he has also studied the political ecology of shrimp farming in Ecuador (for M.S. thesis), agricultural biodiversity conservation in Mexico, conservation policy trends in Latin America, and political geography and identity in Argentina. Eric is currently pursuing two main research projects. One is a book manuscript entitled Enemy in the Blood: Malaria, Nationalism, and Development in Argentina, a version of his dissertation. Newer research, in its preliminary stages, seeks to understand how environmental values, attitudes, and behaviors are shaped by international migration and transnationalism, with a specific focus on Mexican immigrants to the U.S. He also serves on the Editorial Board of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers.
Eric may be contacted at cartered@grinnell.edu.
Updated: January 2010
Health and Medical Geography 