Dr. Ann Laudati :: Sustainability Science Program :: Center for International Development

Sustainability Science Program

Dr. Ann Laudati
Center for International Development
Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
503B Rubenstein Building
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
USA
Tel: (1) 617-384-5737
Fax: (1) 617-496-8753
Email: ann_laudati "at" ksg.harvard.edu
Group affiliation: Giorgio Ruffolo Post-doctoral Fellow in Sustainability Science

Ann Laudati is a Giorgio Ruffolo Post-doctoral Fellow in Sustainability Science in the Sustainability Science Program at Harvard�s Center for International Development. Her work focuses on natural resource politics, community conservation, and local welfare to investigate how the environment has been implicated in the continuing conflicts in Southern Sudan, Northern Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She trained as a human-environmental geographer with specializations in political ecology, conservation and development, and sub-Saharan Africa. Her research centers on the intersection between natural resource use and social welfare, focusing on the implications of global processes on local livelihoods within African communities. She received her PhD in Environmental Geography from the University of Oregon in 2007. Her dissertation entitled "The Greening of the Fortress: Reclaiming the Politics of Exclusion in a Green Era,� analyzes the impact of integrated conservation and development projects on communities living adjacent to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda.� She is the recipient of grants from the Society of Woman Geographers and the University of Oregon�s Center of Humanities.� She is also working as a research assistant in a collaborative household level study of food security.� After completing her M.A. in Geography and her B.A. in Anthropology and African Studies at Ohio University, she worked as a visiting scientist within the department of Zoology and Life Sciences at the University of Transkei (Unitra) in Umtata, South Africa. �

Conscripting Nature:�The Political Ecology of Violent Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Southern Sudan, and Northern Uganda. The role of natural resources in intra-national violence has been well studied.�Yet international attention has largely ignored what many consider this century�s worst acts of civil violence and greatest humanitarian need, including what has been described as Africa�s First World War in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as the long standing conflict between Southern and Northern Sudan, and one of the world�s worst "forgotten" humanitarian emergencies in Northern Uganda.� For the people whose lives have been destabilized and livelihoods uprooted by the long-standing and geographically expansive conflicts in these regions, the relative lack of international attention to these conflicts has been a tragedy. The research examines how conflicts over natural resources contribute to the deterioration of the environment which simultaneously threatens human well-being by presenting a critical study on the key role(s) the environment plays in the promotion and longevity of conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Uganda, and how affected communities respond and adapt to the changes in their environment brought about by the area�s instability. By reaffirming the centrality of nature, not only as a cause and catalyst of violence but as a key actor in an increasingly integrated social, political, economic and ecological process of livelihood and landscape transformation, this research will ultimately contribute to a deeper understanding of the connection between natural resources and violent conflict, and expand current scholarship linking global environmental concerns to questions of human welfare and local livelihoods in developing countries.