معرفی
Dr. Ariell Ahearn is a Departmental Lecturer in Human Geography at the School for Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. She previously served as Course Director for the MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance and was an ESRC-GCRF postdoctoral fellow at the same institution. Her academic journey includes extensive fieldwork in rural Mongolia since 2004, focusing on mobile pastoralist communities and their interactions with development projects and environmental change.
Dr. Ahearn's educational background includes a BA in Anthropology from Hartwick College, an MPA from Cornell University, and a DPhil from the School for Geography at the University of Oxford, completed in February 2016. Her doctoral research focused on the governance of pastoralism and changing forms of work in rural Mongolia.
Her research centers on three interconnected themes: Mobile Pastoralism, Geographies of Mining and Infrastructure in Borderlands, and Environmental Governance. She specializes in qualitative, participatory research using ethnographic methods to document human decision-making in contexts of economic transformation. Her work challenges conventional views of state absence in rural Mongolia, demonstrating instead the complex, active presence of local governance structures. She has particular expertise in understanding how pastoralists negotiate rights to mobility and engage politically across multiple scales.
Dr. Ahearn's publications reveal a consistent focus on pastoralist livelihoods in dryland environments, with increasing attention to infrastructure development impacts, particularly related to China's Belt and Road Initiative in Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan. Her work bridges anthropology, geography, and environmental studies, with strong emphasis on practical applications for sustainable development.
- ESRC-GCRF postdoctoral fellowship
- US Fulbright Fellowship in Mongolia (2006-2007)
Dr. Ahearn actively supervises master's students across the School for Geography and the Environment and the Saïd Business School. She teaches core courses for the MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance, including Research Design, Governance, Politics & Policy, and Research Methods. Her research is supported by significant grants including John Fell GCRF Incubator funding and her current role as Co-I on the ESRC-GCRF funded Gobi Framework project, which studies infrastructure-related conflict and mediation models in collaboration with the University of Central Asia and the Independent Research Institute of Mongolia.
As Chair for the Commission of Nomadic Peoples, Dr. Ahearn convenes annual conference panels at the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnographic Sciences. She also organizes the Oxford Desert Conference, which brings together academics and practitioners from physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities to discuss desert research contexts, with dedicated sessions on mobile pastoralism.
