Background
Brendan A. Galipeau is an environmental anthropologist by training and a lecturer in Environmental Studies. His research and publications broadly focus on environmental and social change and human relations with nature in Southwest China, Tibet and Taiwan. At Binghamton, he is currently formulating new research to be conducted with students to create a story map of Asian American farmers within New York’s Finger Lakes region. In addition to his book below, his publications have appeared in Human Ecology, Himalaya, Culture, Agriculture, Food & Environment, Journal of Agrarian Change, Asian Ethnology, Global Food History and China Perspectives.
Galipeau’s forthcoming book, Crafting a Tibetan Terroir: Winemaking in Shangri-La (University of Washington Press, 2024), examines how wine has transformed Tibetan land and lives. Set in the Sino-Tibetan border region renamed "Shangri-La" by the Chinese government for tourism promotion, the book considers how the deployment of the French notion of terroir works to create new forms of ethno-regional identities and village landscapes through the production of Tibetan wine as a commodity. In Shangri-La, a rapidly developing international ethno-travel destination, European histories and global capitalism are being re-established and reformulated through viticulture, which has altered landscapes and livelihoods.
Education
- PhD, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
- MA, Oregon State University
- BS, University of Oregon
Research Interests
- Food and agriculture
- Water resources
- Indigeneity
- China
- Tibet
- US
Teaching Interests
- Food and agriculture
- Rivers and water
- Sustainability
- East and Southeast Asia
- Wine and viticulture
