Professor Alejandro Garcia Lozano Wins Grant Supporting Environmental Justice Research
Dr. Alejandro Garcia Lozano, an assistant professor of anthropology and environmental justice, was awarded a grant from the Hudson River Foundation’s Hudson River Fund, which supports cutting-edge scientific research on the Hudson River watershed, to support a collaborative project titled “Intersections of Marine Debris, Spiritual Practices and Stewardship.”
The project, which will be conducted in partnership with Dr. Hannah Eisler Bennett (co-PI) from New York Sea Grant-Cornell University and community-based organization Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus, focuses on the intersections of faith-based cultural practices, and environmental stewardship in Jamaica Bay, an ecologically vital estuary within the Hudson River watershed. The project will examine how Hindu Indo-Caribbean spiritual practices influence perceptions about the value and use of natural areas in Jamaica Bay, their interactions with other residents and groups, and the potential to reduce marine debris through more sustainable practices. The findings will be used to develop insights and recommendations to improve institutional practices and public perceptions, reduce barriers to engagement and support community leaders to further minimize the environmental impact of worship practices.
Garcia Lozano, who will serve as the project’s principal investigator, is an interdisciplinary social scientist and environmental anthropologist whose work focuses on human-environment relations and on the politics of natural resources. Their areas of expertise include small-scale fisheries, collective action, social organization in fishing, labor in seafood production and the politics of environmental governance including climate change adaptation and ecological restoration. Their recent scholarship includes co-authoring “Problemáticas: Multi-Scalar, Affective and Performative Politics of Collective Action among Fishing Cooperatives in Mexico” in Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space (2023) and “Decent Work in Fisheries: Current Trends and Key Considerations for Future Research and Policy” in Marine Policy (2022).
Before joining John Jay, Garcia Lozano was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus Center leading a collaborative multi-institutional research project on the challenges for decent work in fishing. Before that, their doctoral research examined the history and politics of collective action among fishing cooperatives in Mexico. They earned a PhD from Duke University (2020), an MS from Florida International University (2014) and BS from Florida Atlantic University (2011).
