
Biography
My primary professional interests while I was actively employed lay in building collaborations between earth scientists and social scientists to understand better how people relate to their environments, and to using the knowledge from these collaborations to help local people solve local problems. Theoretically, this meant a combination of ethno-ecology and resilience theory; substantively, it meant looking at the historical relations between people and natural resources, particularly forests; and geographically, it happens mostly in Liangshan, China, but also in Taiwan and in Washington State. Implications of this interest have led me to co-found the Yangjuan Primary School in Liangshan and the Cool Mountain Education Fund. My other interests are in building scholarly community across cultural barriers, particularly with scholars in China, and in promoting international student exchange. This in turn gives me reason to be interested in translation, particularly between the English and Chinese languages.
In retirement, I continue to be interested in collaborative research and writing, and particularly in seeing what can be done to improve relationships between university scholars and both rural and Native communities.
Research
Selected Research
- Glover, D.M., Hayes, J.P. & Harrell, S. Resilience, Rationalism, and Response in Modern Chinese Social-Ecological Systems. Hum Ecol 49, 3–5 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-021-00214-3
- G. W. Skinner. Stevan Harrell & William Lavely eds., Chen, B. trans., Xu, J. review & revise (trans.), Rural China on the Eve of Revolution: Sichuan Fieldnotes, 1949-1950. Zhonghua Shuju. Forthcoming. (In Chinese).(施坚雅著, 郝瑞、雷伟立编,陈波译,许晶审校,《解放前夕的中国乡村:四川田野笔记,1949-1950》,中华书局。)
- Harrell, Stevan. Ecology, Economy, Education, and Employment in Southwest China. The Asia Pacific Journal. N.p., n.d. Web.
Research Advised
- Griffin, P. Joshua. Breathing Room: Climate Displacement, Biopolitics, and Indigenous Sovereignty in Northwest Alaska. Diss. U of Washington. 2019.
- Luo, Juan. Border Crossing, Collaboration and Transition: NGOs' Health Aid in the China and Myanmar Border. Pilot Research. 2018.
- Chang, Hsi-Wen. Wounded Land and Wounded Peoples : Attitudes of Paiwan People and Tao People toward Nuclear Waste. Diss. U of Washington. 2017.
- Lee, Racquel. Cosmopolitanism for Credit: Learning Global Dispositions at Transnational Universities in China. Pilot Research. 2016
- LeCompte-Mastenbrook, Joyce Kelly. Restoring Coast Salish Foods and Landscapes: A More-than-human Politics of Place, History and Becoming. Diss. U of Washington, 2015.
- Statz, Michele L. Limited Relief: Cause Lawyering on Behalf of Unacccompanied Chinese Youth. Diss. U of Washington, 2014.
- Kleisath, Christina Michelle. Tibet beyond Black and White Racial Formations and Transnational Collusions. Diss. U of Washington, 2012.
- Tseng, Hsun-Hui. Stratified Foreign Bodies and Geopolitics of Desire Gender, Class and Race in the Transnational Marriage Market in Taiwan. Diss. U of Washington, 2012.
- Grub, Barbara L. Culture, Ecology and Livestock Development in Two Nuosu Yi Villages in Liangshan, China. Diss. U of Washington, 2012.
- Smith, Christina S. Differing Interpretations of Sustainability and Natural Resource Management in Three Adjacent Communities in the Oregon Cascades. Diss. U of Washington, 2010.
- Trusty, Teressa. The Politics of Representing Nature, Culture, and Conservation in Northwestern Bolivia. Diss. U of Washington, 2010.
- Kedar, Tami Blumenfield. Scenes from Yongning: Media Creation in China's Na Villages. Diss. U of Washington, 2010.
- Zanotti, Laura C. Re-envisioning Indigenous Territoriality: Nature, Place and Space in the Kayapó Reserve. Diss. U of Washington, 2008.
- Chou, Jen-Yu. The Psychiatric Politics of Risk and Cost: Forensic Theory and Practice in the US and Taiwan. Diss. U of Washington, 2006.
- Taiban, Sasala. The Lost Lily: State, Sociocultural Change and the Decline of Hunting Culture in Kaochapogan, Taiwan. Diss. U of Washington, 2006.
- Lee, Racquel. Innovation Bubbles: Digitizing, Diversifying, and Financializing Global Higher Education in China. Dissertation from the University of Washington