Neil DAWSON

Neil Dawson is a postdoctoral researcher on the ‘Just Conservation’ project with the European School of Political and Social Sciences (ESPOL). He is also a research fellow with The Global Environmental Justice Group at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK as well as a Steering Committee member for the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP), for which he chairs the theme on Human Wellbeing and Sustainable Livelihoods.

His research addresses poverty, wellbeing and environmental justice among rural populations, particularly poor and marginalised social and ethnic groups, in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and South America. Neil uses mixed-method approaches to explore the interlinked themes of biodiversity conservation, agriculture and climate change.

Neil gained a PhD from the School of International Development at UEA in 2013, but before that had an erratic career path including time as ecologist, nature reserve warden, economist and chartered accountant.

Spoken languages: English (and at a basic level Kinyarwandan, German, Lao, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, French)

RESEARCH FIELDS:

• Environmental Justice
• Political Ecology
• Biodiversity governance
• Rural Sociology