I take an interdisciplinary approach to understanding conservation, and my work draws on international politics, geography and sociology. I am interested in debates on global environmental governance, especially the roles of international NGOs and international treaties. I am particularly interested in how global environmental management plays out on the ground, how it is contested, challenged and resisted. I also work on the politics of tourism, especially ecotourism, and I think it is important to place it in the wider context of the international system; this allows us to trace the underlying links between tourism and global capitalism. Following this, I am keen to understand the multiple ways that conservation organisations are responding to the global financial crisis. 

My current research focuses on wildlife conservation, tourism and illicit trading networks. I have fieldwork experience in Zimbabwe, Belize, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Botswana, Thailand and South Africa.

I joined the School of Anthropology and Conservation in September 2012, previously I held posts at the Universities of Edinburgh, Lancaster and Manchester.

Recent Publications

Duffy, R., (in press 2012) ‘The International Political Economy of tourism and the neoliberalisation of nature: challenges posed by selling close interactions with animals’ Review of International Political Economy

Duffy, R., (in press 2012) ‘Global Environmental Governance and North-South Dynamics: The Case of CITES’ Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy

Bulkeley, H., L. Andonova, K. Bäckstrand, M. Betsill, D. Compagnon, R. Duffy, A. Kolk, M. Hoffmann, D. Levy, P. Newell, T. Milledge, M. Paterson, and P. Pattberg ( in press 2012) ‘Governing climate change transnationally: assessing the evidence from a survey of sixty initiatives’ Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy

Duffy, R., 2011, ‘Global Networks: The World Bank and Transnational Environmental Management’ Journal of Natural Resources and Policy Research’ vol 3, no. 3, pp.329-340

Full list of publications

Teaching

I contribute to the following courses:

Undergraduate

DI501 -Climate Change and Conservation

DI520 - Conservation and Communities

Postgraduate

SA806 -Social Science Perspectives on Environmental Issues (in SSPSSR)

DI875 - Principles and Practice of Ecotourism

DI878 - Social Science Perspectives on Conservation

Research

My main funded research projects are:

1. Principal Investigator, ESRC grant of £94,000 (ESRC reference RES-000-22-2599) Neoliberalising Nature? A Comparative Analysis of Asian and African Elephant Based Ecotourism (Dec 2007-October 2008). The ecotourism industry often relies on charismatic mega-fauna, and the elephant is regularly used as a key ‘attraction’ so that they hold a central place in ecotourist imaginings of what constitutes a nature-based experience. This project examined whether ecotourism neoliberalises nature through developing and implementing ecotourism as a strategy for environmentally sustainable economic development; it examined these debates in relation to a specific case: the development of elephant-based ecotourism in Thailand and Botswana.

2. Member, Leverhulme Trust International Collaborative Network grant of £95,000. Transnational Climate Change Governance (Principal Grant Holder, Professor Harriet Bulkeley, Geography Department, Durham University.Understanding the nature of transnational governance requires both an international and an interdisciplinary effort. This research network brought together researchers from different disciplines and traditions of thought and from seven different countries to tackle the issue of transnational governance of climate change.

3. Principal Investigator, ESRC grant of £42,000 (ESRC reference RES-000-22-0342) Global Environmental Governance and Local Resistances. Oct. 2003-July 2004. This research was based around the concept of global governance and its relevance to global and local environmental issues. In particular this research examined the kinds of challenges that global environmental governance encounters at the local level. It applied the concept of governance states to the case of Madagascar in order to highlight the challenges facing the conceptualisation of African statehood in the new globalised world order.

4. Principal Investigator, ESRC grant of £39,919 (ESRC reference R000223013) ‘The Geopolitics of Bioregions: Conservation and Erosion of National Boundaries’. (Oct. 1999 to Oct. 2000) This research examined the notion of globalisation through the creation of transfrontier environmental initiatives; it compared the attempts to establish transfrontier initiatives in Central America and Southern Africa.

Supervision

I welcome applications from prospective PhD candidates who are interested in researching political ecology, tourism, transfrontier conservation, wildlife management, global environmental governance, and gem stone mining.

Current Students

• Melanie Stroebel, Global Environmental Governance: Tourism Industry Responses to Climate Change
• Lisa Ficklin, The Political Ecology of Environmental Crisis: Neoliberalising Nature and Political Identity in Nicaragua
• Katherine Scholfield, Transnational Networks and Gorilla Conservation in Rwanda
• Nathan Truelove, Biodiversity in Belize

Former PhD students

• Simon O’Meally, The Environment and the World Bank: The case of the LVEMP in East Africa
• Danielle Beswick, Globalisation and African Interventionism: The Case of the Great Lakes Conflict
• Lorraine Moore, Global Environmental Governance: The Politics of Elephant Management in Namibia
• Solomon Gofie, Democratisation and Human Rights in Ethiopia
• Ian Convery, Bourdieu, Lifescapes and Health: Forest Communities in Mozambique

Other Activities

During 2012-2013 I will be a Visiting Fellow, Department of International Development, London School of Economics.

I was elected as Fellow of the Society of Biology in 2011.

I am a member of the ESRC Virtual College (Politics, Economics and Geography group).

I am on the editorial boards of Environment and Society, Critical Issues in Tourism, Critical African Studies, Journal of Modern African Studies and Conservation and Society.

I was book reviews editor for Journal or Modern African Studies 2000-2010.

I am a member of the British International Studies Association (BISA) and the African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK).

I have been on the following Judges Panels: Audrey Richards Prize: awarded by the African Studies Association of the UK for the best African Studies thesis submitted during 2004-2006; Political Studies Association Harrison Prize for the best article published in Political Studies during 2011.