Dr. Matt Himley
- About
- Education
- Awards & Honors
- Research
Biography
I am a nature-society geographer. My primary areas of specialization are political ecology, critical resource geography, and environmental history. I have extensive research experience in the Andean region of South America, especially in Peru.
Current Courses
235.001Geography Of Emerging Areas: Latin America
142.004Human Geography
287.003Independent Study - Geography
Teaching Interests & Areas
Courses that I teach on a regular basis at ISU include Human Geography (GEO 142), Environment, Resources, and Sustainability (GEO 205), Geography of Latin America (GEO 235a02), Political Ecology (GEO 334), and Economic Geography (GEO 342). In all my classes, I seek to foster students' capacities to think critically and to develop informed, nuanced understandings of important real-world issues.
Research Interests & Areas
In broad terms, I am interested in three dimensions of human-environment interactions: (a) the processes through which elements of the natural world are thought of, valued, and incorporated into the economy as resources; (b) the socio-environmental implications of resource exploitation; and (c) the forms of social mobilization and protest that resource-industry expansion generates. In recent years, my research has focused on the drivers and effects of changing patterns of mineral development in Peru, in both contemporary and historical periods. Through this research, I address issues including the role of science in the identification, exploitation, and management of natural resources; the implications of shifting governance frameworks for resource-use dynamics and conflicts; and the rise of sustainability and corporate social responsibility in government and resource-industry discourse and practice. I am especially interested in the unequal impacts of resource-centered development policies, the uneven power dynamics that characterize encounters at the extractive frontier, and how historically marginalized communities organize to defend their rights and interests in the face of extractive-industry expansion.
Ph D Geography
MA Geography
BA English
Civic Engagement Centering EDI Award (As Member of Hostile Terrain 94 at ISU Organizing Team)
Honorable Mention, José María Arguedas Prize for Best Article of the Year (2021)
Impact Award
Impact Award
University Research Initiative Award
Douglas Clay Ridgley Endowed Fellowship
University Teaching Initiative Award
Doctoral Prize
Student Paper Award
Book Review
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Himley, M. 2017. Review of Environmental Governance in Latin America by Fábio de Castro, Barbara Hogenboom, and Michiel Baud (eds.). Latin American Politics and Society 59 (2): 165-168.
Book, Chapter
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Book, Edited
Castillo Guzmán, G., M. Himley, and D. Brereton, eds. 2024. Mining, Mobility, and Social Change in the Global South: Regional Perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge.
Himley, M., E. Havice, and G. Valdivia, eds. 2022. The Routledge Handbook of Critical Resource Geography. New York, NY: Routledge. (Published in July 2021)
Encyclopedia
Himley, M., E. Havice, and G. Valdivia. 2024. Resource geography. In The Encyclopedia of Human Geography, ed. B. Warf. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25900-5_94-1
Himley, M. 2017. Environment and development. In The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology, eds. D. Richardson, N. Castree, M. F. Goodchild, A Kobayashi, W. Liu, and R. A. Marston, 1-12. Malden, Oxford: John Wiley and Sons.
Himley, M. 2012. Mining (Andes). In The Encyclopedia of Sustainability, Vol. 8: The Americas and Oceania: Assessing Sustainability, eds. S. G. Beavis, M. Dougherty, and T. Gonzales, 166-169. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing.
Journal Article
Verweijen, J., M. Himley, and T. Frederiksen. 2024. Unearthing extractive subjects: Power and subjectivity at the extractive frontier. Geoforum 148 (January): 103917.
Kenney-Lazar, M., A. Johnson, F. Sultana, M. Himley, A. J. Bebbington, E. Havice, J. Rice, and T. Osborne. 2023. Relational environmental governance: A critical framework for praxis with the material world. Journal of Political Ecology 30 (1): 677-698.
Valdivia, G., M. Himley, and E. Havice. 2022. Resources are vexing! Progress in Environmental Geography 1 (1-4): 9-22.
Himley, M. 2021. The future lies beneath: Mineral science, resource-making, and the (de)differentiation of the Peruvian underground. Political Geography 87 (May): 102373.
Marston, A. and M. Himley. 2021. Earth politics: Territory and the subterranean – Introduction to the special issue. Political Geography 88 (June): 102407.
Presentations
2024. Panelist, “Author meets critics and compañer@s. Disrupting the Patrón: Indigenous Land Rights and the Fight for Environmental Justice in Paraguay’s Chaco,” panel session at 38th Conference of Latin American Geography, San Juan, Puerto Rico, February
2023. “Science, race, and territory in late-nineteenth-century Peru,” paper presented virtually as part of “Seminario Fronteras: Feminism, Memory and Identity” organized by Illinois State University and Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, April
2022. Panelist, “Book launch: A Research Agenda for Environmental Geopolitics,” discussion panel session at American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, February
2021. “El futuro que yace debajo: Mineralogía, territorio y la (des)diferenciación del subsuelo peruano de finales del siglo XIX,” paper presented virtually as part of Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú’s Encuentro Anual de Investigación, Innovación y Creación (Session: “Minería, movilidad espacial y transformaciones territoriales en los Andes”), October
2020. “The future lies beneath: Mineral science, resource-making, and the (de)differentiation of the Peruvian underground,” paper presented at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (sponsored by Department of Geography), Chapel Hill, NC, February
2020. “Underground geopolitics: Science, race and territory in Peru during the late nineteenth century,” paper presented at 36th Conference of Latin American Geography, Antigua, Guatemala, January
2018. “Making minerals modern: Mineral science and political economy in late-nineteenth-century Peru,” paper presented at American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, April
2018. “Mineral science, resource-making, and the production of the three-dimensional territory in late-19th-century Peru,” paper presented at Northern Illinois University (sponsored by Department of Geographic and Atmospheric Sciences), DeKalb, IL, September
2018. “The future lies beneath: Mineral science, resource-making, and territorial production in late-nineteenth-century Peru,” paper presented at Indiana University Bloomington (sponsored by Department of Geography), Bloomington, IN, November