Bio

Dr. Shelly Annette Biesel is a cultural and ecological anthropologist whose research examines how environmental governance, infrastructure, and historical dispossession shape uneven landscapes of climate vulnerability and resilience. Her work focuses on environmental justice, Indigenous and Afro-descendant territorial rights, gendered labor, and the social life of climate adaptation. Drawing on political ecology and feminist anthropology, she explores how communities in coastal and rural regions confront environmental change while advancing alternative futures grounded in local knowledge and collective stewardship.

Shelly is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University, where she contributes to the ERC-funded project Climate Citizenship: Infrastructures, Environments, and Democracy in the Era of Climate Change. Working within a comparative, multi-sited research team, she investigates how emerging climate infrastructures and community-based adaptation initiatives reconfigure socio-political relations, environmental governance, and forms of climate citizenship across the Netherlands, Japan, and coastal Louisiana in the United States.

Prior to joining Leiden University, she served as a Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow with the U.S. National Park Service (2023–2025), where she collaborated with Tribal Nations and federal land managers in the northeastern United States to advance more equitable models of coastal stewardship and co-management. She was also an Affiliate Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maine.

Her ethnographic research spans diverse coastal and extractive landscapes. In Pernambuco, Brazil, she examined how colonial legacies, development interventions, and fisheries governance shape intergenerational inequalities within Afro-Brazilian fishing communities. In Appalachian Kentucky, she studied the socio-ecological transformations accompanying coal industry decline. More recently, her work in coastal New England explored how Indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) informs collaborative conservation and climate adaptation initiatives. Through ethnographic, archival, and participatory methods, her scholarship foregrounds the role of community-led environmental governance in addressing the intertwined challenges of climate change, inequality, and historical dispossession.

Research Interests

  • Environmental Justice and Climate Adaptation

  • Climate Citizenship and Environmental Governance

  • Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Land Tenure and Territoriality

  • Gender, Labor, and Environmental Change

  • Coastal and Marine Political Ecologies

  • Decolonial and Feminist Research Methodologies

  • Public Anthropology and Community-Engaged Research

Selected Publications

  • Biesel, S.A. (2026) “Reclaiming the Shoreline: Relational Ecological Stewardship as Decolonial Coastal Planning in Brazil.”  Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486261422092

  • Biesel, S.A. (2026) “Disrupted Pathways: Indigenous Knowledge and the Shifting Politics of Federal Resource Governance.” Park Stewardship Forum 42(1): 123-131. https://doi.org/10.5070/P5.62085

  • Biesel, S.A. (2025) “Cheia de Axé (full of Axé): Spirituality, resistance, and repair in Pernambuco’s Afro-Brazilian traditional communities.” Feminist Anthropology e70028. https://doi.org/10.1002/fea2.70028

  • Biesel, S.A. and Mendonça, E.C. (2025) "Racialized Land Tenure and the Colonial Present: Political Ecologies of Dispossession in Northeast Brazil." Journal of Political Ecology 3(1): 6119. https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.6119

  • Seigerman, C., McKay, K.S., Basilio, R., Biesel, S.A., et al. (2023) "Operationalizing Equity for Integrated Water Resources Management."Journal of the American Water Resources Association 59: 281-298. https://doi.org/10.1111/1752-1688.13086

    • Recipient of the 2024 Kenneth J. Lanfear Award for Outstanding Technology Paper.

  • Biesel, S.A. (2021) "When Disinformation Makes Sense: Contextualizing the War on Coal in Appalachian Kentucky." Economic Anthropology 8(1):7-21. 10.1002/sea2.12194

    • Top-cited article in 2021.

  • For a comprehensive list of publications, please refer to Shelly’s ORCID page.

Education

  • Ph.D. in Ecological Anthropology (with a Certificate in Women and Gender Studies) – University of Georgia (2023)

    • Dissertation: "Confronting Legacies of Loss: Negotiating Intergenerational Inequalities in Afro-Brazilian Traditional Communities"

  • M.A. in Social and Behavioral Anthropology – University of Louisville (2014)

  • B.A. in Social and Behavioral Anthropology, Studio Art – University of Louisville (2009)

Teaching Philosophy

Shelly is committed to creating inclusive, critical, and engaged learning environments where students feel empowered to connect anthropological theories with real-world challenges. Her teaching approach emphasizes collaborative learning, reflexivity, and the application of anthropological insights to contemporary social and environmental issues. She has taught courses ranging from Introduction to Cultural Anthropology to Anthropologies of Consumption and Globalization, and has integrated digital humanities tools and community-based learning into her courses.

Selected Awards and Honors

  • Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow— (2023-2025)

  • National Park Foundation Interpretation Grant —(2024)

  • American Water Resources Association Kenneth J. Lanfear Award, Outstanding Technology Paper—(2024)

  • Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Award—(2021)

  • Top-Cited Article, Economic Anthropology—(2022)

  • Finalist, Rappaport Prize, Anthropology and Environment Society—(2021)

Public Engagement and Media

Shelly is actively involved in public scholarship through contributions to outlets like Cultural Anthropology, Antipode Online, Anthropology News, and Engagement. Her recent essay, "Planning for Ghosts", published in the Coastal Futures series by Cultural Anthropology, reflects on how colonial legacies continue to shape contemporary coastal management practices.

She also contributes to the Now and Here initiative, a digital platform that documents and amplifies underrepresented histories across U.S. National Parks and Historic Sites, supporting efforts to preserve more inclusive interpretations of public landscapes. While earning her Ph.D., she collaborated with interdisciplinary teams to produce accessible digital humanities content, such as the Lungs of the Earth. project that highlights Brazil’s socio-environmental challenges through interactive storytelling and visual media.

Contact

If you are interested in collaborating, learning more about Shelly’s research, or have other inquiries, feel free to reach out via email.