A reception will follow the lecture in the museum lobby.
This lecture is co-sponsored by the Burton K. Wheeler Center for Public Policy.
Taken as a whole, the American West is booming. Considered as a constellation of unique sub-regions, communities and places, the American West tells a more complex story about the nature of opportunity in the emerging economy. The Third West describes those rural and isolated locations that remain closely tied to natural resource markets and the uncertainty and challenges they imply. Drawing on a range of research projects analyzing community responses to major shifts in coal, oil and gas and rural property markets, Dr. Haggerty will explore the elements of resilience in Third West communities, as well as the potential for building supportive connections with rural communities from our base at MSU and in Bozeman.
Julia Haggerty, an assistant professor of geography in the Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State University, teaches courses on Human Geography, Energy Resources and Rural Economic Geography. Her Resources and Communities Research Group has a broad portfolio of externally-funded research projects focused governance and the experiences of resource peripheries. She also co-directs the Energy Impacts Research Coordination Network, an international forum for cross-disciplinary social science coordination and exchange. Haggerty holds a B.A. from Colorado College and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Colorado at Boulder. From 2005 to 2007, she was post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for the Study of Agriculture and Environment at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. From 2007 to 2013, Haggerty was a policy analyst for the regional non-profit research group Headwaters Economics.
Haggerty's talk will feature aerial photography by Chris Boyer of Kestrel Aerial Services. Chris's mission is to engage the aerial view of landscapes to explore the interconnectedness of natural and human landscapes.
The Perspectives on the American West Lecture Series features experts from around the country discussing the history, literature and culture of the West; issues affecting the wildlife and fisheries of the region; and the West's geography, geology and resources. The series is co-sponsored by the Burton K. Wheeler Center and is a program of the Center for Western Lands and Peoples, an interdisciplinary research center within the MSU College of Letters and Science that is focused on the places and peoples of the Western United States and Canada.