RUSSELL FIELDING geographer
CV and Publications
Why do you write like you're running out of time?
—Lin-Manuel Miranda, "Non-Stop," Hamilton
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The Wake of the Whale: Hunter Societies in the Caribbean and North Atlantic
Harvard University Press, 2018
This book compares the traditional whaling cultures of the Faroe Islands and St. Vincent & the Grenadines, with special focus on the implications for human health and sustainability, based on long-term fieldwork in both locations.
Erratum: The values for two columns were transposed in the St. Vincent whaling records, included on p.294 of the Appendix. The corrected table, which will be included in future printings of the book, can be downloaded here (PDF).
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"The correct name for the breadfruit": on interdisciplinarity and the artist Sydney Parkinson's contested contributions to the botanical sciences
Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, 2022
This paper considers the centuries-long controversy among botanists surrounding the contributions of Sydney Parkinson, a young artist who sailed with Captain Cook and who published, posthumously, the first formal description and scientific name of breadfruit. Parkinson's work was largely dismissed, I argue, owing to his role as an artist and to an inability of some early, influential botanists to see the value of interdisciplinary environmental research. Parkinson's name has been rehabilitated, to a degree, but the uncomfortable relationship between the arts and the sciences continues to hamper our understanding of the natural world.
No Longer "Confined to the Lower Keys of Florida": Mainland United States Cultivation of Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) in a Changing Climate
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2022
(with Jorge J. Zaldivar)
This paper investigates efforts to grow breadfruit in Florida, both past and present. Dating back to before breadfruit had even been transplanted to the Caribbean, notable Americans including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson wanted to see it growing in the United States. During the 19th century, some growers were able to establish breadfruit in the Florida Keys and the far southern mainland. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, breadfruit's range has expanded northward and inland, likely due to climate change and the "tropicalization" of those landscapes. In this study, we identified more than 40 Florida-based breadfruit farmers and discussed with them the environmental challenges still faced by their crop.
Social Equity is Key to Sustainable Ocean Governance
npj Ocean Sustainability, 2022
(with Kate Crosman, et al.)
Whalers in “A Post-Whaling World”: Sustainable Conservation of Marine Mammals and Sustainable Development of Whaling Communities—With a Case Study from the Eastern Caribbean
Sustainability, 2022
An Introduction to a Breadfruit Grove in Big Pine Key, Florida
Proceedings of the Florida State Horticultural Society, 2022
(with Michelle Leonard-Mularz and Patrick Garvey)
This brief "scientific note" introduces readers to Grimal Grove, a breadfruit grove in the Florida Keys that was restored following its abandonment and subsequent destruction by a hurricane. Coauthored with a Monroe County extension agent and the grove's owner.
Teaching The Tragedy of the Commons through an Iterative, Performance-based, Embodied Cognition Pedagogy
Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 2022
Applying theories of embodied cognition and performance pedagogies, this paper presents a classroom-based activity that can be used to teach the concepts of Garrett Hardin’s The Tragedy of the Commons in a way that will likely intersect with students’ own lived experiences more contemporarily meaningfully than Hardin’s central example of a group of livestock owners making use of a shared field for grazing.