Nancy Lee Peluso

Nancy Lee Peluso is the Henry J. Vaux Distinguished Professor of Forest Policy (2009-2019) at the University of California, Berkeley, affiliated with the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM). Her research focuses on political ecology, resource policy, and agrarian change in Indonesia, emphasizing how social differences shape resource access and control. Peluso’s work integrates historical, ethnographic, and sociological methods to analyze forest governance, land tenure, and environmental conflicts.

Education: PhD (1988), MSc (1983) in Sociology of Agriculture and Natural Resources from Cornell University; B.A. in Anthropology from Friends World College (1978).

Research Interests: Political ecology of forests and land use, resource politics in Indonesia, gender dynamics in agrarian systems, and the socio-environmental impacts of migration and remittances. Current projects include studies on labor migration’s role in reshaping forest landscapes and smallholder mining practices in West Kalimantan.

Her work has been supported by major grants and fellowships, including Guggenheim and National Science Foundation awards. She chairs the Center for Southeast Asia Studies and served on editorial boards for journals like Journal of Peasant Studies. Peluso is recognized for mentoring students through her Land Lab collective, which explores interdisciplinary socio-environmental issues.

Awards include Berkeley’s Sarlo Award for graduate mentoring and the Edward J. Taaffe Lectureship. Her seminal book Rich Forests, Poor People (1992) remains a cornerstone of agrarian political ecology.

Publications span over 70 articles and books, with key themes in territorialization, resource violence, and the political dimensions of conservation. Recent work examines gold mining’s role in producing contested territories and the interplay between remittances and agrarian change in East Java.