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Assistant Professor
office: 7 Stewart Hall
phone: 573-882-9613
email:
Education
- Ph.D. Geography, University of Kansas, 2002
- MA, Anthropology, University of Kansas, 1999
Research Areas
Cultural geography: politics of place; sense of place & environmental perception; indigenous, rural, & resource-dependent communities
Regions: North America--Canada (British Columbia), U.S. West (Colorado)
Methods: ethnography, phenomenology, interactionism, discourse analysis
Research Interests
I am interested in the politics of place in rural areas of North America, especially how residents politicize their emotional attachments to home and region. Funded by the National Science Foundation, my current research explores how residents of exurban areas are developing, disseminating, and implementing environmental knowledge. The two-year project is a county-level qualitative field project undertaken in collaboration with the University of Kansas Field Camp near Cañon City, Colorado. Over the past decade, I have also explored grassroots rural social movements and interethnic partnerships in British Columbia as well as the cultural politics of development in rural Georgia and Colorado. Largely in collaboration with others, a side area of research has involved using content analysis to examine struggles in the news media over the representation of places. Finally, I am currently studying existential phenomenology to discern its possibilities for geography as a disciplinary practice.
Prospective graduate students: please contact me if you are interested in these or related areas of study (topic, region, or method). Opportunities are available for field study and thesis work in Fremont County, Colorado.
Curriculum vita
Selected Publications
(2008a) “Traditional knowledge regarding water among the Cheslatta-Carrier Nation in British Columbia: Change and continuity in the use and valuation of a contested resource.” In La Gestion de l’Eau dans l’Histoire Environmentale: Saviors Traditionnels et Practiques Modernes, ed. Ella Hermon. Quebec City: Laval University Press.
(2008b) “Place-making in rural protest: An analysis of a grassroots social movement in Anahim Lake, British Columbia.” Journal of Rural Studies 24(2): 172-181.
(2007a) “Place perception and social interaction on an exurban landscape in central Colorado.” Professional Geographer 59(4): 421-433 (with five other authors).
(2007b) “Captain Canuck, audience response and the project of Canadian Nationalism.” Social & Cultural Geography 8(5): 737-755 (with Jason Dittmer).
(2006) “The future’s past: Politics of time and territory among Dakelh First Nations of British Columbia.” Geografiska Annaler 88B (3): 311-321.
(2005) “Great Basin imagery in newspaper coverage of Yucca Mountain.” Geographical Review 95: 517-536 (with Timothy Brock).
(2004) “Place identity in a resource-dependent area of British Columbia.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94: 944 – 960.
Larsen , S.C. (2004) “Place, activism, and development politics in the Southwest Georgia United Empowerment Zone.” Journal of Cultural Geography 22: 27 – 49.
Larsen, S.C. (2003) “Collaboration geographies: Native-White partnerships during the re-settlement of Ootsa Lake, British Columbia, 1900-52.” BC Studies 138-139: 87-114.
Larsen , S.C. (2003) “Promoting aboriginal territoriality through interethnic alliances.” Human Organization 62: 74 – 84.
Service to the Profession
Chair, Awards Committee, Cultural Geography Specialty Group of the AAG
Book Review Editor, Historical Geography
Hobbies
Guitar (flat-picking, jazz, bluegrass, rock); backpacking & camping; jogging; road trips with my wife and two boys
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Soren Larsen
