At the Intersection of Anthropology and Climate Science
Dr. Erin Crowley-Champoux shows off just one of the many “hats” available to anthropologists
By Dr. Erin Crowley Champoux
An anthropologist can wear many hats. By degree and research, I am an anthropological archaeologist and an environmental archaeologist and, increasingly, an environmental anthropologist. While my earlier research has focused on food production and social organization, each of these hats are broadly concerned with the ways that human societies shape, and are shaped by, their environment. This work is at the intersection of anthropology, biology, agronomy, history, climate science, and ethnography.
Two of Dr. Crowley-Champoux’s “hats”: (left) breaking ground as a supervisor and faunal analyst with the Dun Ailinne Archaeological Firld School (June 2024); (right) serving as a Community Planning and Economic Development Fellow for the Island Institute and AmeriCorps (September 2012)
These last two, climate science and ethnography, is where I find myself now. The nexus between the physical sciences and the social sciences. I have always been interested in how the two may be negotiated. Because a simple fact is that the physical sciences and the social sciences need each other.
When I started working for the University of Maryland Sea Grant Extension, the Director of the Maryland Sea Grant College, Dr. Fredrika Moser, said to me, “Climate change isn’t a science problem; it’s a people problem.” There are many, very smart, scientists in the physical sciences who understand the way that the world is changing – getting hotter, with more intense storm systems that have knock-on effects touching all facets of society – we know that the world is changing and we know why it’s changing. The mandate of the Sea Grant Program and Extension is to use science to support people and the best way to do that is to understand people in the first place.
Dr. Erin Crowley-Champoux and colleagues in Ireland, May 2024, opening an experimental grain storage pit as a part of her postdoctoral research at the University College of Dublin (FOODSEC project).
The devastation of Hurricane Helene has demonstrated the need to not only support weather forecasters to predict major (and increasingly more common) extreme weather events, but to support communities to prepare for such events. This includes understanding people and communities and developing culturally responsive weather forecasts and warnings. Here is the power and the role of the social scientists, as we’ve developed methods to understand people and communities, and funding for and recognition of this vital work is expanding. In fact, $575 million of the nearly $6 billion Biden-Harris Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (part of the Inflation Reduction Act), has been earmarked for the Climate Resilience Regional Challenge, aimed at combating the climate crisis and working with communities to help them face these challenges and become more climate resilient. $22.78 million is being used to fund the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) programs that focus on water-driven climate impacts, including inland flooding.
There is a recognized need for social scientists to work in what has traditionally been institutions focused on the physical sciences. In the past few years, NOAA has been building its Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBES) division, hiring economists, sociologists, and, yes, anthropologists, to address these issues. And there are other institutions and non-profits, too, who are integrating physical and social science research, including the Island Institute, whose past President held a PhD in Anthropology and where I held a Community Planning and Economic Development Fellowship prior to starting graduate school. Now, working between Maryland Extension, Maryland Sea Grant, and NOAA has given me the opportunity to continue to negotiate the environmental sciences and the social sciences, foregrounding communities and the impacts of our changing world.
A note about the author: Dr. Crowley-Champoux earned her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2022, where she was a volunteer with SASSAk12 from 2016-2020. Since leaving MN, she has taught archaeology and cultural anthropology at the University of Southern Maine and was a postdoctoral researcher at University College Dublin on the FOODSEC project (2023-2024). She is now a Community Flooding Social Science Liaison for University of Maryland Sea Grant Extension.
