Skip to main content

Dr. Matt Himley

Professor of Geography
Geography-Geology-Environment
Office
FHS Felmley Hall Of Science 207c
Office Hours
On sabbatical 2024-25 academic year
  • 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

287.003Independent Study - 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

Syracuse University
Syracuse, New York

MA Geography

Syracuse University
Syracuse, New York

BA English

Northwestern University
Evanston, Illinois

Civic Engagement Centering EDI Award (As Member of Hostile Terrain 94 at ISU Organizing Team)

Center for Civic Engagement, Illinois State University
2023

Honorable Mention, José María Arguedas Prize for Best Article of the Year (2021)

Peru Section, Latin American Studies Association
2022

Impact Award

University College, Illinois State University
2021

Impact Award

University College, Illinois State University
2017

University Research Initiative Award

Illinois State University
2016

Douglas Clay Ridgley Endowed Fellowship

Department of Geography-Geology, Illinois State University
2015

University Teaching Initiative Award

Illinois State University
2014

Doctoral Prize

Syracuse University
2010

Student Paper Award

Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group, Association of American Geographers
2009

Book Review

Himley, M. 2024 (April 29). Review of Rosewood: Endangered Species Conservation and the Rise of Global China by Annah Lake Zhu. The Journal of Development Studies.
-
Himley, M. 2024. Review of The Three Deaths of Cerro de San Pedro: Four Centuries of Extractivism in a Small Mexican Mining Town by Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert. The AAG Review of Books 12 (3): 14-16.
-
Himley, M., Z. Pearson, A. Johnson, G. Vila Benites, A. Malone, G. Valdivia, J. Correia, and A. Marston. 2024. Book review forum: Subterranean Matters: Cooperative Mining and Resource Nationalism in Plurinational Bolivia by Andrea Marson. Journal of Latin American Geography 23 (2): 165-188.
-
Himley, M. 2022. Review of Local Experiences of Mining in Peru: Social and Spatial Transformations in the Andes by Gerardo Castillo Guzmán. The Extractive Industries and Society 11 (September): 101117
-

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

Brereton, D., G. Castillo Guzmán, and M. Himley. 2024. Mining and mobility: Key insights, governance implications, and future research. In Mining, Mobility, and Social Change in the Global South: Regional Perspectives, eds. G. Castillo Guzmán, M. Himley, and D. Brereton, 207-226. New York, NY: Routledge.

Himley, M., G. Castillo Guzmán, and D. Brereton. 2024. An introduction to mining, mobility, and social change. In Mining, Mobility, and Social Change in the Global South: Regional Perspectives, eds. G. Castillo Guzmán, M. Himley, and D. Brereton, 1-19. New York, NY: Routledge.

Valdivia, G., M. Himley, and E. Havice. 2022. Critical resource geography: An introduction. In The Routledge Handbook of Critical Resource Geography, eds. M. Himley, E. Havice, and G. Valdivia, 1-20. New York, NY: Routledge. (Published in July 2021)

Himley, M. 2020. Underground geopolitics: Science, race and territory in Peru during the late nineteenth century. In A Research Agenda for Environmental Geopolitics, ed. S. O’Lear, 74-87. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Himley, M. 2016. Mining, property, and the reordering of socionatural relations in Peru. In Mining in Latin America: Critical Approaches to the New Extraction, eds. K. Deonandan and M. L. Dougherty, 208-226. New York: Routledge.

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. “Mining, mobility, and social change in the Global South,” research seminar presented virtually for Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, University of Queensland, Australia, July (with David Brereton and Gerardo Castillo Guzmán)

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

Grants & Contracts

Faculty Research Award. Illinois State University. Illinois State University. (2018)
Douglas Clay Ridgley Endowed Fellowship. Department of Geography-Geology. Illinois State University. (2015)
Pre-Tenure Faculty Initiative Grant. Illinois State University. Illinois State University. (2014)
New Faculty Initiative Grant. Illinois State University. Illinois State University. (2011)
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship. U.S. Department of Education. Federal. (2007)