Mara J. Goldman is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Director of the Environment and Society Program, Institute of Behavioral Science. She is an affiliate of the Gender and Women’s Studies program and the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies (CNAIS). Her research and teaching can best be described as human-environment geography/ feminist political ecology of conservation and development interventions, with a focus oxn East and Southern Africa. She teaches courses on the Geography of Africa (Global Africa), Political Ecology (undergraduate and graduate seminars), Environment and Society, Qualitative Methods, and gender and environment. She has worked with Maasai communities in Tanzania and Kenya for over two decades on the politics of knowledge and participation surrounding wildlife conservation, rangeland management, and climate change adaptation. Her book, Narrating Nature: Wildlife conservation and Maasai ways of knowing, was published by the University Arizona Press, Critical Green Engagements Series in 2020. She also co-edited Knowing Nature: Conversations at the Intersection of Political Ecology and Science Studies in 2011. Dr. Goldman is currently looking at what it would mean to decolonize conservation globally; and how to better address gender equity questions as related to wildlife conservation. She is actively engaged with community-based organizations in Tanzania and Kenya on these topics and is pursuing research possibilities that support local efforts and ways of knowing and being in their lands.
