Rosemary-Claire Collard

Biography

I’m a economic geographer and political ecologist studying the political economy of environmental change. In my research I especially try to identify the political economic drivers of extinction and loss of wild animal abundance. The proximate causes of these trends are land-use change (causing habitat loss) and overexploitation – this is well-trodden scientific ground. But what’s behind those proximate drivers?

To develop deeper explanations, I study colonial and capitalist structures that are implicated in wild animal over-exploitation and habitat loss. These are structures like property and regulation; markets, commodity chains, and financial flows; and decision-making and management processes like environmental assessment. How are value and power generated and distributed within these structures? Why do states authorize destructive land use change and who benefits from it? More broadly, how have colonialism and capitalism shaped animal life and relations between people and animals, especially wildlife? I try to answer these kinds of questions in ongoing research projects on extractive development on Indigenous land and endangered species (e.g. woodland caribou) habitat in Canada (with Jess Dempsey); global live wildlife trade; and predator conflict. In these projects I combine primary field research with critical theory – especially feminist and postcolonial political economy, environmental justice, and animal studies.

I did my PhD (2014) and MA (2009) in geography at the University of British Columbia and a BA Honours in geography and environmental studies on Vancouver Island at the University of Victoria (2007), not far from my hometown of Sooke.

Selected publications

Books

• Collard, R-C. 2020. Animal Traffic: Lively Capital in the Global Exotic Pet Trade. Durham: Duke University Press
• Gillespie, K and R-C Collard, eds. 2015. Critical animal geographies: Politics, intersections and hierarchies in a multispecies world. New York: Routledge

Academic Essays

• Collard, R-C & J Dempsey. In press. A parasite not a cannibal? How the state and capital protect accumulation amid ecological devastation. Antipode.
• Collard, R-C, J Dempsey, Y Al Bouchi and N Bawaan. 2024. Does regulation delay mines? A timeline and benefit audit of BC mines. FACETS https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2024-0083
• Gillespie, K, K Srinivasan & R-C Collard. 2024. Citational politics and practices in and through Animal Geographies: Interrogating onto-epistemological diversity. Scottish Geographical Journal 140 (3-4): 375-398
• Collard, R-C. 2024. Unruly natures: Nonhuman intractability and multispecies endurance. In Doing Political Ecology: A Guide to Critical Environmental Inquiry, eds G Simon and K Kay. London: Routledge, 1-15
• Srinivasan, K and R Collard. 2023. Nature without Conservation. Current History 122 (847): 289–294.
• Collard, R-C, J Dempsey, B Muir, R Allan, A Herd, P Bode. 2023. Years late and millions short: a predictive audit of economic impacts for coal mines in British Columbia, Canada. Environmental Impact Assessment Review (in press): 1-25
• Hamers, M, A Elwin, R-C Collard, C Shepherd, E Coulthard, J Norrey, D Megson and N D’Cruze. 2023. An analysis of Canada's declared live wildlife imports and implications for zoonotic disease risk. FACETS (in press): 1-29
• Arseneault, J & R-C Collard. 2023. Crimes against reproduction: Domesticating life in the animal trials. Humanimalia (in press): 1-22
• Collard, R-C & J Dempsey. 2022. Future eco-perfect: Temporal fixes of liberal environmentalism. Antipode 54 (5): 1545–1565
• Arseneault, J & R-C Collard. 2022. The resilience of the pest. Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities 9 (3): 89-110
• Doebeli, G, Magnuson, B, Yoon-Henderson, K, Collard, R-C, Dempsey, J et al. 2021. How does the environmental state “see” endangered marine animals? Environmental Science & Policy 124: 293-304
• L Lunstrum, N Ahuja, B Braun, R-C Collard, P Lopez & R Wong. 2021. More-than-human and deeply human perspectives on COVID-19. Antipode 53 (5): 1503-1525
• Collard, R-C, J Dempsey & M Holmberg. 2020. Extirpation despite regulation? Environmental assessment and caribou. Conservation Science and Practice 2 (4): 1-10
• Collard, R-C & J Dempsey. 2020. Two icebergs: difference in feminist political economy. EPA: Economy and Space 52 (1): 237–247
• Collard, R-C & J Dempsey. 2018. Accumulation by difference-making: an Anthropocene story, starring witches. Gender, Place & Culture 25 (9): 1349-1364
• Collard, R-C, L Harris, N Heynen & L Mehta. 2018. The antinomies of nature and space. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 1 (1-2): 3-24
• Collard, R-C. 2018. Disaster Capitalism and the Quick, Quick, Slow Unravelling of Animal Life. Antipode 50 (4): 910-928
• Collard, R-C & J Dempsey. 2017. Capitalist natures in five orientations. Capitalism Nature Socialism 28 (1): 78-97
• Collard, R-C & J Dempsey. 2017. Politics of devaluation. Dialogues in Human Geography 7 (3): 314–318
• Collard, R-C. 2017. Companion species. In Gender: Animals, ed J S Parreñas, 3-17. Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan
• Collard, R-C. 2017. Exotic pets. In Humans and animals: A geography of coexistence encyclopedia, eds J Urbanik & C Johnson, 137-139. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO Press
• Collard, R-C. 2016. Electric elephants and the lively/lethal energies of wildlife documentary film. Area 48 (4): 472-479
• Collard, R-C, J Dempsey & J Rowe. 2016. Re-regulating socioecologies under neoliberalism. In The Handbook of neoliberalism, eds K Birch, S Springer & J Macleavy, 455-465. New York: Routledge
• Dempsey, J & R-C Collard. 2016. If biodiversity offsets are a dead end for conservation, what is the live wire? Oryx 51 (1): 35-39
• Collard, R-C, J Dempsey & J Sundberg. 2015. A manifesto for abundant futures. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 105 (2): 322-330
• Collard, R-C. 2015. Ethics in research beyond the human. In The handbook of political ecology, eds T Perreault, G Bridge & J McCarthy, 127-139. New York: Routledge
• Collard, R-C, J Dempsey & J Sundberg. 2015. The moderns’ amnesia in two registers. Environmental Humanities 7: 227-232
• Collard, R-C, J Dempsey & J Sundberg. 2015. Disentangling the multiple and contradictory logics of Nature™ Inc. Environment and Planning A 47 (11): 2394-2399
• Collard, R-C. 2014. Putting animals back together, taking commodities apart. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 104 (1): 151-165
• Collard, R-C. 2014. W for Wild. In The ABCs of multispecies studies, ed E Kirksey. 
• Brown, S, R-C Collard & D Hoogeveen. 2014. Pedagogical declarations: feminist engagements with the teaching statement. The Journal of Geography in Higher Education 38 (1): 148-154
• Collard, R-C & J Dempsey. 2013. Life for sale? The politics of lively commodities. Environment and Planning A 45 (11): 2682 – 2699
• Collard, R-C. 2013. Panda politics. The Canadian Geographer 57 (2): 226-232
• Collard, R-C. 2013. Apocalypse meow. Capitalism Nature Socialism 24 (1): 35-41
• Collard, R-C. 2012. Cougar-human entanglements and the biopolitical un/making of safe space. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30 (1): 23-42
• Collard, R-C. 2012. Cougar figures, gender and the performances of predation. Gender, Place and Culture 19 (4): 518-540

Publicly-engaged research

• Contributing author to the 2024 Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Transformative Change Assessment (Chapter 4).
• Allan, R, P Bode, R-C Collard & J Dempsey. 2020. Who benefits from caribou decline? Report for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA): Vancouver, BC. Accompanying op-ed in the Vancouver Province; related op-ed in The Tyee.
• Collard, R-C & J Dempsey. 2020. Advisors and research supervisors. Cited podcast season (4 episodes) on “The tragedy of liberal environmentalism” (4 episodes: “Modifying Maize,” “Made of Corn,” “I Can’t Breathe,” and “The COVID Kings”).
• Collard, R. 2015. Director, producer & scriptwriter of ANIMAL TRAFFIC, a short animated film by The Bioeconomies Media Project.

Graduate supervision

Current

• Liam Kennedy-Slaney: PhD (2019-) thesis on the political ecology of wildlife translocation
• Jade Baird: MA (2023-) thesis on the political ecology of the state and extinction

Complete

• Briana Magnuson: MA (2020-2022) thesis on the political ecology of international shark trade
• Rachel Singleton-Polster: MA (2020-2022) thesis on caribou decline and the political ecology of mine reclamation
• Zachary Cameron: MA (2018-2020) thesis on permaculture, political ecology and social change
  
• Meghan Gagliardi: MSc (2016-2018) thesis on social difference, white supremacy, feminist and anti-racist thought, the university
• Stephanie Eccles: MSc (2016-2018) thesis on contested companionship, animal geographies, feminist and multispecies methodologies
• Angela Parker (co-supervised with Alan Nash): MSc (2014-2016) on farm animal sanctuaries, "safe space" and human-animal relations