معرفی
Rebecca Witter serves as Associate Professor of Sustainable Development in the College of Fine and Applied Arts at Appalachian State University, where her work critically examines intersections of culture, power, environment, and development through collaborative community engagement. She co-founded the Eastern North Carolina Environmental Justice Collaborative (EJ Co-Lab) in 2021 to address systemic inequities in rural communities facing extractive industries.
Her academic foundation includes a Ph.D. in Environmental Anthropology from the University of Georgia (2010) and a B.A. in International Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1998), complemented by postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia.
Witter's research program centers on environmental justice and conservation through decolonial and feminist lenses, investigating settler colonialism, dispossession, and indigenous rights across diverse contexts from southern Africa's Limpopo Borderlands to North Carolina's bioenergy landscapes. Her methodological approach combines ethnographic rigor with transdisciplinary collaboration, prioritizing community knowledge in studies of wildlife hunting, industrial agriculture, and energy transitions while challenging militarized conservation paradigms.
Her 15-year publication trajectory reveals evolving focus from African conservation resettlement to contemporary U.S. environmental justice struggles, consistently highlighting marginalized voices in debates about rhino poaching, biomass energy, and climate adaptation. This scholarly arc demonstrates increasing engagement with community-led solutions and policy interventions.
- College of Fine and Applied Arts Outstanding Teaching Award (2020)
- College of Fine and Applied Arts Outstanding Scholarship Award (2023)
As an educator, Witter mentors undergraduate researchers through community-engaged projects and chairs honors theses examining planetary crisis discourses, rural environmental injustice, and indigenous land authority. She currently directs the Departmental Honors Program and contributes to the NC Governor's Environmental Justice Advisory Council, bridging academic rigor with actionable policy engagement through the EJ Co-Lab's community-university partnerships focused on strengthening resilience among Black, Indigenous, and multiracial communities in eastern North Carolina.
