Sharon Kishik
Ph.d. Fellow
My work brings social science and humanities perspectives to bear on questions of nature and the environment.
My work explores the management of nature and biodiversity, focusing on its political and ethical implications in the context of contemporary efforts to address and respond to environmental crises. Through a series of empirical studies—including research on young people, local government “nature teams,” agricultural organizations, and conventional farmers—this work traces dominant understandings of nature and environmental crises and how they shape political possibilities for engagement and responsibility. Centering on questions of affect and subjectivity, I am particularly interested in how people are expected to encounter and relate to nature, and in how political and ethical difference is articulated through notions of “proper” feeling and unfeeling nature.