Michael Watts (geographer)

Michael J. Watts (born 1951 in England) is Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. He retired in 2016. He is a leading critical intellectual figure of the academic left.[1]

His first book, Silent Violence:Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria (1983, 2013), is considered a pioneering work in political ecology.[1] Other published works include Reworking Modernity: Capitalisms and Symbolic Discontent (1992, with Allan Pred), Liberation Ecologies (1996, 2004, with Richard Peet), The Hettner Lectures: Geographies of Violence (2000), Violent Environments (2001, with Nancy Lee Peluso) and the Curse of the Black Gold (2008, with photojournalist Ed Kashi).[2] Watts has also been an assistant editor of the award-winning New Encyclopedia of Africa (2008) and its predecessor, the Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara (1997).[3]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Doolittle was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Arsel, Murat (1 January 2009). "Reflections: Michael Watts interviewed by Murat Arsel" (PDF). Development and Change. 40 (6): 1191–1214. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7660.2009.01616.x. Retrieved 20 February 2019.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Conover was invoked but never defined (see the help page).