Jake Dean '23
"The M.A. in Latin American Studies provided me the practical and theoretical foundation to continue on in my academic studies, as well as the geographic and historical background to engage with the environmental politics of Mexico. The flexibility and broad expertise of the department provides students with an excellent jumping off point for continuing education in the academy, careers in the non-profit sector, and critical work in both government and journalistic spaces."
Jake W. Dean is a Chancellor's and NSF Graduate Research Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at UCSB. As an environmental anthropologist, he primarily employs ethnographic methods, close reading, and insights from local ecological knowledge to analyze the political ecology of ecotourism, fisheries, agriculture, and marine conservation in North America. His dissertation research seeks to create a posthumanist political ecology of conservation efforts, whale-watching, and the affective entanglements of ecotourists along the migratory path of Pacific gray whales between coastal Alaska and Baja California Sur, Mexico. He currently serves as the Book Reviews Editor for the Journal of Political Ecology and as the Student Representative for the Culture and Agriculture section of the American Anthropology Association.
Degrees
- M.A Latin American Studies, University of Arizona, 2023
- M.A. Sociocultural Anthropology, UC Santa Barbara, 2025
- PhD Sociocultural Anthropology, UC Santa Barbara, In-Progress