Kamal Kariem

Role
Anthropology Graduate Student
Bio/Description

Kamal Kariem’s primary research interests lie at the intersections of indigeneity, protected areas, Russia, and post-Socialism. He investigates environmental governance through the lens of conservation projects in the Russian Far East (RFE) particularly in Primorskii Krai. In this vein, Kamal grapples with the ways that conservation projects do more that protect biodiversity but also reconfigure social relations, notions of self and tradition, and expand per se beyond conservation. Working with the myriad of actors in conservation projects local and international NGOs, the state (both federal and local manifestations), community organizations, and individuals, he also grapples with how conservation is constitutive of and constituted in fields of power and how these fields of power through conservation projects impact locals—both indigenous and otherwise. Broadly, Kamal’s research interrogates the meaning of environmental governance in Russia in relation to changing forms of subjectification in the Anthropocene.