Research Program

I study how human communities and environmental governance institutions are adapting to ecological transformation driven by climate and land use change. My research integrates theory and methods from environmental anthropology, cultural ecology, and the Indigenous environmental sciences to understand the sociocultural dimensions of environmental change, including impacts on cultural ecosystem services, Indigenous cultural practices and identity, sense of belonging, place attachment, and traditional food systems. This work generates critical knowledge for developing effective and equitable strategies for climate adaptation and mitigation that promote the well-being of both people and ecosystems.

My research program is organized around three interconnected lines of inquiry:

1. Understanding the nature of climate impacts on vulnerable, frontline communities

I investigate how climate and land use change affect the cultural practices, livelihoods, and well-being of Indigenous nations and rural communities. This includes studying how changing ecosystems disrupt traditional food systems, reshape social identities, and alter the relationships between people and the landscapes they depend on.

2. Identifying barriers and enablers to equitable climate adaptation

I examine how environmental governance institutions, land management policies, and cross-cultural collaboration shape the capacity of communities to adapt to environmental change. My work reveals institutional barriers to Indigenous stewardship on public lands while documenting how new models of collaborative governance are creating more inclusive approaches to land management.

3. Advancing community-led approaches to building climate-resilient landscapes

Through community-based participatory research, I work with Tribal Nations, land managers, and rural communities to co-produce knowledge and develop strategies for landscape stewardship that integrate Indigenous and local knowledge with scientific research. This work supports cultural revitalization, ecosystem health, and community self-determination.

The foundation of my research program is long-term, place-based projects conducted in collaboration with local communities through community-engaged and participatory research practices. My current projects span ethnographic, ethnoecological, and spatial methods applied to communities and landscapes across North America, from the local level to a continental scale.

Active Research Projects

Pinyon Community Climate Action Network

Improving the Social-Ecological Resilience of California Dryland Forest Ecosystems to Climate Change (2023-ongoing)

Project Description: This project focuses on the social and cultural dimensions of forest and landscape resilience for Tribal Nations and rural communities in eastern and southern California. Recent droughts and wildfires have caused extensive tree die-off across California’s dryland forests, with tree regeneration often insufficient for replacement. Pinyon pine trees and the edible pine nuts they produce are critical for wildlife, forest sustainability, and carbon sequestration, and are culturally and economically important to Tribal Nations and rural communities. Communities have observed dramatic reductions in pine nut production associated with increasing aridity, threatening cultural practices and livelihoods, adversely affecting wildlife habitat, and undermining landscapes that support outdoor recreation economies.

I have led the project’s social science, policy and community engagement work focused on the following areas: (1) understanding how Tribal Nations and rural communities value and use woodland ecosystems for food, fuelwood, silvopasture, recreation, and other cultural and economic purposes; (2) elevated Tribal and community goals for climate resilience through outreach, publications, and the Eastern Sierra Stewardship Summit in September 2025; (3) evaluated and measured landscape-level cultural ecosystem services to assess the cultural values supported by Eastern Sierra lands; and (4) assessed how attention to relational values can support community-centered climate adaptation in forests.

I launched the Eastern Sierra Land & Community Survey in 2024-2025 to conduct household surveys, community focus groups, and semi-structured interviews across Alpine, Mono, and Inyo counties to understand how forest-adjacent communities value and use landscapes in the region. As a community-based participatory research initiative, we co-produced research instruments with project partners and developed a Tribal data sovereignty agreement to protect sensitive knowledge and ensure equity in the benefits of research. For more information see the project website and a recent news story on this project.

Policy Relevance: This project is producing actionable outcomes including expanded Tribal forest stewardship on federal lands, a community-informed management prioritization framework, strategies to increase pine nut production, climate-adaptive reforestation recommendations, a monitoring network to identify priority management areas, and interdisciplinary training for Tribal partners, students, and postdocs. For more information, please see: http://pinyonjuniper.org/.

Collaborators: Miranda Redmond (PI) - UC Berkeley, Gabrielle Wong-Parodi (co-PI) - Stanford University, Bishop Paiute Tribe, Big Pine Paiute Tribe, Washoe Tribe of Nevada & California, Bridgeport Indian Colony, US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Inyo National Forest, Sierra Business Council, Eastern Sierra Land Trust, Friends of the Inyo.

Funders: University of California Office of the President, Climate Action Research Initiative

Publications:In progress

Cultural Dynamics of Climate and Land Use Change in the American West

Land Stewardship and Belonging Book Project (2016-ongoing)

Project Description: My book manuscript, Good Country: Land Stewardship and Belonging in the American West, examines the social and cultural dimensions of environmental change in the rural North American West. Based on thirty-six months of field-based ethnographic, ethnoecological, and historical research in the Great Basin and Sierra Nevada regions of California and Nevada, it investigates the cultural politics of land and its stewardship in dryland forest and shrub steppe ecosystems as they intersect with a changing climate, land-use histories, and environmental governance regimes.

Landscapes in the region are undergoing material transformation due to climate change, land-use practices, and the long-term impacts of land dispossession, reshaping how people relate to land, substantiate their place on it, and make claims to territory. These transformations are creating new social-ecological configurations of people, land, and place I call ecologies of belonging. The book explores the cultural and political dynamics of belonging through interconnected chapters showing how Paiute people, federal land managers, and livestock ranchers navigate environmental changes and understand their changing relationship to the land. It addresses four major sociocultural dynamics: moral ecology and conflicting modes of landscape valuation; sage grouse conservation as a project of cultivated belonging; aesthetic representations of desert landscapes and settler pastoral visions challenged by Great Basin Indigenous artists; and heritage politics and contested regimes for managing cultural heritage on public lands.

It shows how the social identities and cultural practices of Paiute people are destabilized by the loss of traditional foods and access to forestlands due to wildfire, drought, ecological restoration, and land-use impacts from livestock grazing, recreation, and mining. It also describes how livestock ranchers are being displaced by evolving societal values, and how land managers struggle with the multiplying burdens of environmental change. This work highlights the role and vision of Paiute people for how to make livable, hospitable landscapes that support multiple forms of life and belonging.

Policy Relevance: This work informs efforts to help rural communities navigate environmental change and the Anthropocene on socially and ecologically vulnerable rural landscapes in the US West through engagement with federal land managers, Tribal Nations, and county and state government agencies.

Collaborators: Bridgeport Indian Colony, USDA Forest Service

Funders: Yale University, USDA National Institute of Food & Agriculture, Wenner-Gren Foundation, University of California

Publications:

Burow, P.B. 2023. The Ecology of Belonging: Cultural Dynamics of Environmental Change in the North American West. Ph.D. Dissertation. New Haven, CT: Yale University. 456 pp.

Burow, P.B. 2021. “Burning Through History in California's 'Asbestos' Forests” Hot Spots: Fieldsights. Society for Cultural Anthropology. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/burning-through-history-in-californias-asbestos-forests

Burow, P.B. 2020. “Nature’s Belonging: Landscape, Conservation, and the Cultural Politics of Place in the Great Basin.” In Public Lands in the Western US: Place and Politics in the Clash between Public and Private, K. Sullivan and J. McDonald, eds. pp. 175-197. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793637079/Public-Lands-in-the-Western-US-Place-and-Politics-in-the-Clash-between-Public-and-Private

Masonic Mountain Shared Stewardship Project

Social Dimensions and Institutional Effectiveness of Collaborative Stewardship with Native Nations of a Forest Agroecosystem in California (2022-ongoing)

Project Description: Forests are currently facing numerous threats and there is an urgent need to determine effective approaches for enhancing forest resilience and cultural values amidst environmental change. Pinyon-juniper woodlands, a widely distributed forest type in western North America, are central to the worldviews, social identities, and cultural practices of many Indigenous peoples, including the Numu (Northern Paiute) and Wašiw (Washoe) peoples of California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada. Increasingly frequent hot droughts associated with climate change have caused widespread tree mortality across the US Southwest. Warming temperatures are also linked to decreasing pine nut production, with consequent effects on cultural uses, Indigenous traditional foods, wildlife habitat, and tree reproduction. The interaction between extreme fire weather conditions and the invasion of non-native species has led to increased frequency of catastrophically large, high-severity wildfires in the region. Tribal Nations are particularly concerned about the loss of culturally important woodlands to wildfire and drought-induced mortality. This makes management of woodland health an increasing priority for federal land managers, yet major gaps in knowledge about the efficacy of these treatments remains. This planning collaborative is part of a multi-year effort to develop strategies to improve forest resilience and revitalize Indigenous cultural practices on a large forest landscape in Mono County, California in collaboration with Tribal Nations, forest ecologists, and federal land managers. The social-ecological studies associated with this effort will evaluate the impact of different techniques for improving woodland resilience from western silvicultural practices to Indigenous stewardship methods. It will also evaluate the effectiveness and social outcomes of collaborative stewardship with Tribal Nations when working across cultural worldviews and institutions.

Policy Relevance: Achieving a land stewardship strategy that integrates ecological and cultural values offers the possibility of more inclusive shared stewardship of public lands between Tribal Nations and the US government. In addition to experimentally testing various approaches to improving forest resilience, there is a need to better understand the challenges and possibilities of collaborative environmental governance that engages with Native communities and Tribal Nations on a deeper level. Current land management policies and decision-making frameworks infrequently include Indigenous knowledge, and yet Indigenous peoples are often adversely affected by management actions on their ancestral homelands. This project investigates new models of effective shared stewardship amidst ongoing environmental changes that are altering ecological processes and upending culturally important ecosystems. This project is poised to inform more effective public lands and environment policy that advances the sovereignty and well-being of Tribal Nations across the United States.

Collaborators: Alexandra Urza (PI) - US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, Bridgeport Indian Colony, Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, University of California-Berkeley, University of Nevada-Reno, Great Basin Bird Observatory, Stanford University.

Funders: State of California - Sierra Nevada Conservancy, USDA National Institute of Food & Agriculture

Publications:In progress

Indigenous Data Empowerment Network

Social-Ecological Effects of Land Dispossession and Forced Migration on Indigenous Peoples in North America (2015-ongoing)

Project Description: We constructed a comprehensive new dataset of land dispossession and forced migration for Indigenous peoples and nations across the area currently called the contiguous United States. Using a comparative-historical research design, we assess the full extent and long-term effects of land dispossession and forced migration, examining climate change risks and hazards, economic endowments, agricultural suitability, and proximity to federally-managed lands for dispossessed Native Nations.

Policy Relevance: This work informs climate adaptation and mitigation for Indigenous nations and furthers understanding of the factors affecting landscape resilience tied to historical land dispossession and forced migration. This initiative serves as a basis for ongoing efforts to mitigate future impacts of climate change and for new policies to remediate the historical causes of vulnerability across Native America.

Collaborators: Justin Farrell, Kathryn McConnell, Kyle Powys Whyte, Jude Bayham; Native Land Information System

Funders: Yale University, National Science Foundation, USDA National Institute of Food & Agriculture

Publications:

Farrell, J., P.B. Burow, K. McConnell, J. Bayham, K.P. Whyte, and G. Koss. 2021. “Effects of Land Dispossession and Forced Migration on Indigenous Peoples in North America.” Science 374(6567): eabe4943. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abe4943

Emerging Research Projects

Environmental Justice and Agricultural Land Transitions in the San Joaquin Valley

I am developing a new research initiative examining environmental justice and agricultural land use transitions in California’s San Joaquin Valley. As climate change intensifies water scarcity, reshapes energy systems, and accelerates farmland conversion, rural communities in the valley—many of them low-income communities of color—face compounding pressures on their livelihoods, health, and relationship to the land. These transitions raise urgent questions about who benefits from land use change, how communities participate in decisions about their landscapes, and what pathways exist for more equitable and sustainable rural futures.

This emerging project extends my research program into a new regional context and ecosystem type, bringing the same commitment to long-term, community-engaged methods that anchors my work in the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin. I am particularly interested in how agricultural land transitions intersect with water governance, the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure, and ecological restoration on formerly cultivated lands. This work would open new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and community partnerships in one of California’s most environmentally and socially consequential landscapes.

I welcome inquiries from prospective collaborators, community partners, and graduate students interested in contributing to this initiative.

The Pinyon Cultural Ecosystem Services Framework for Forest Stewardship Planning

I am developing a new forest stewardship planning tool, the Pinyon Cultural Ecosystem Services framework (PiCES), in partnership with land managers, Tribal nations, and community-based organizations. PiCES is designed to integrate cultural values and community priorities into land management decision-making by systematically gathering input on stewardship treatment designs based on local goals and anticipated effects on cultural ecosystem services—including the cultural practices, subsistence uses, and relationships to place that sustain community well-being.

The framework addresses a critical gap in existing approaches to forest management planning, which rarely account for the cultural dimensions of ecosystem health or the well-being outcomes that follow when communities are able to re-engage in stewarding culturally significant places on Tribal homelands. PiCES draws on data from the Eastern Sierra Land and Community Survey and ongoing ethnographic and ecological fieldwork to link community-identified values to specific stewardship actions. While currently being piloted in pinyon-juniper woodland ecosystems, the framework is designed to be adaptable to other forest types and collaborative stewardship contexts where cultural ecosystem services are important but underrepresented in management planning.

Completed Projects

Rural West Covid Project

Community and Household-Level Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic in the Rural US West (2020-2023)

Project Description: The coronavirus pandemic disrupted life for millions of people across the United States, yet there was a lack of rapid and reliable information about its scope and impact in underserved areas such as the rural US West. With this project we fielded a multi-wave survey to assess the social and economic impacts of the pandemic on households and communities across the western United States. This project informed public policy across various levels of government to meet the needs of rural communities struggling with the social and economic impacts of the pandemic.

Policy Relevance: This project informed public policy across various levels of government to meet the needs of rural communities struggling with the social and economic impacts of the pandemic.

Collaborators: Justin Farrell, Kathryn McConnell, J. Tom Mueller, Alexis Merdjanoff

Funders: National Science Foundation

Publications:

McConnell, K., J.T. Mueller, A.A. Merdjanoff, P.B. Burow, and J. Farrell. 2023. “Informal modes of social support among residents of the rural American West during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Rural Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12507

Mueller, J.T., A.A. Merdjanoff, K. McConnell, P.B. Burow, and J. Farrell. 2021. “Elevated serious psychological distress, economic disruption, and the COVID-19 pandemic in the nonmetropolitan American West.” Preventive Medicine: e106919. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2021.106919

Mueller, J.T., K. McConnell, P.B. Burow, K. Pofahl, A.A. Merdjanoff, and J. Farrell. 2021. “Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Rural America” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(1): 2019378118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2019378118

Farrell, J., J.T. Mueller, K. McConnell, P.B. Burow, K. Pofahl, and A.A. Merdjanoff. 2020. Impact of COVID-19 on the Rural West: Material Needs, Economic Recovery, and Political Attitudes. Executive Summary of Research Findings. New Haven, CT: Yale School of the Environment. https://doi.org/10079/08e2da0a-551b-46a6-a1a2-ad98816a7870