About Dr. Maclin

I grew up near Memphis on a farm—where I still live today—that is an artifact of the plantation agriculture system in West Tennessee. This has informed many of my interests: in food, the environment, and the ways that privilege, inequality, and injustice are created and maintained in our society. I also have a background in ecology, a discipline that insists on seeing the systemic patterns and connections between seemingly different things. Broadly, I am interested in the ways that we come to think, believe, and act in the ways that we do. I am very interested in the ways that our material culture and technology exert influence on our epistemology and ontology.

My anthropological research has focused on policy, organizations, knowledge, and networks. In my Ph.D. (University of Georgia 2015) dissertation, I explored shifting organizational culture and social networks in the WWF Global Arctic Program. I have also conducted research on international environmental policy and after-school education programs.

My current research is on the systemic interactions among policy, livelihoods, landscape, material culture, and meaning in and around Blue Oval City—an industrial development zone in West Tennessee. Specifically, I am interested in the political economies that disrupt and stabilize particular assemblages of humans, materials, environments, and technologies, and the effects of those political economies on issues of social and environmental justice.

Interests and Expertise

Politics of knowledge; science, technology, and society; political ecology; organizational and institutional ethnography; food and agriculture; globalization; energy and climate change; science and policy; collaborative methods; educational ethnography

Selected Publications and Talks

Publications

• 2022  Maclin, Edward. Learning Management Systems as Anti-Convivial Tools. Fast Capitalism. 19(1). https://10.32855/fcapital.202201.010
• 2021  Feldman, Lindsey, Keri Vacanti Brondo, Stanley Hyland, and Edward Maclin. Grit, Grind, and Praxis: The Memphis Model of Applying Anthropology. Annals of Anthropological Praxis. https://doi.org/10.1111/napa.12159 
• 2015 Witter, Rebecca; Suiseeya, Kim; Gruby, Rebecca; Hitchner, Sarah; Maclin, Edward; Borque, Maggie; and J. Peter Brosius. Moments of influence at the 10th Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Environmental Politics. 24:6. 894 – 912. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2015.1060036
• 2014 Scott, Deborah; Hitchner, Sarah; Maclin, Edward; and Juan Luis Dammert Bello. Fuel for the Fire: Biofuels and the Problem of Translation at the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Global Environmental Politics. 14:3. https://doi.org/10.1162/GLEP_a_00240
• 2012 Haggerman, Shannon; Witter, Rebecca; Corson, Catherine; Suarez, Daniel; Maclin, Edward; Borque, Maggie; and Lisa Campbell. On the coattails of climate? Opportunities and threats of a warming Earth for biodiversity conservation. Global Environmental Change. 22(3):724-735. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.05.006
• 2011 Veteto, James and Edward Maclin, eds. The Slaw and the Slow-Cooked: Culture and Barbecue in the Mid-South. Nashville:Vanderbilt University Press.

Talks

• 2022    Life Around the Blue Oval, American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, Nov. 9 – 13.
• 2021    Online Classes as Solutionism: Can a LMS be Convivial?, Society for the Social Studies of Science Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada (Virtual), Oct. 8.
• 2020    The Politics of Knowledge in the Virtual Classroom: Considering the Logic of our Tools; UM3D Winter Summit, University of Memphis (Online), Dec. 3.
• 2018    Environment, Change, and the Prefigured Landscape, American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, San Jose, CA, Nov. 14 – 18.
• 2013    Panel Co-Chair: The Anthronaut Farmer. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, Nov. 20 – 24.
• 2013    The Anthronaut, The Golem, and Other Tales of the Dark. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, Nov. 20 – 24.

Selected Awards

• 2022 Susan Te Paske "See Me" Award - University of Memphis (DRS)
• 2022 University of Memphis Alumni Association Distinguished Teaching Award
• 2013 Teach Tennessee Governor's Fellowship for Science Education

Recent Courses

• ANTH 1100: Biological Anthropology and Prehistory
• ANTH 1200: Intro to Cultural Anthropology
• ANTH 3111: [Critical] Human Paleontology
• ANTH 3200: Cultures and Change Around the World
• ANTH 3282: American Communities
• ANTH 4065: Anthropological Theory
• ANTH 4-6418: Anthropology of Organizations
• ANTH 4-6980: (Special Topics) Business Anthropology
• ANTH 4991: (Special Topics) Anthropology of Anarchism ; See the CLASS ZINE [pdf download]
• ANTH 7076: Anthropological Data Analysis and Writing

Additional Resources

• Website: tedmaclin.com
• orcid.org/0000-0002-8664-5365