Amity Doolittle

Amity Doolittle’s research focuses on property rights and how control over and access to natural resources is defined, negotiated, and contested by different stakeholders.  She is interested in understanding the social and political processes that result in centuries of social inequities and unequal distribution of the benefits and burdens of natural resources.  Her research often takes on a historical approach focusing on issues of legal and cultural pluralism. Her research approach is interdisciplinary, combining perspectives from anthropology, political science, environmental history, and political ecology to explore environmental histories, property relations and conflicts over resources use. Her research has been primarily in Southeast Asia, but she has also worked on projects in Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, and Peru. Current research is focused on history of land use change in New Haven, Connecticut.