Dianne E. Rocheleau

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

Dianne E. Rocheleau, associate professor of geography at Clark University, investigates the intersection of nature, culture, technology, and justice in the ecologies of places that people call home. She has conducted social and ecological research on land use, livelihood, and landscape change in Machakos District, Kenya, and several sites in the Dominican Republic and the United States. Rocheleau has coauthored and coedited four books, including Gender, Environment and Development in Kenya: Perspectives from the Grass Roots (Lynne Reinner), listed as a 1996 Choice Outstanding Academic Book.

During her Radcliffe fellowship year, Rocheleau will complete a book titled “The Invisible Ecologies of Machakos: Landscapes and Life Stories, 1900–2000.” She will use poststructural, network, and complexity theories as well as the diverse perspectives of people in the region to understand the past and to imagine socially just and ecologically viable futures in Kenya’s semi-arid farmlands. She aims to produce data sets and scenarios for use in negotiations on land use policy and practice.

Rocheleau earned her PhD in geography with a minor in systems ecology at the University of Florida. A former Rockefeller Foundation fellow at the International Center for Research in Agroforestry, she has received grants from the Swedish International Development Agency, the United States Department of Agriculture Forestry Service, and the Ford Foundation. She has also served on numerous boards and on panels convened by the National Science Foundation and the National Research Council.