James J. A. Blair, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Anthropology

Geography and Anthropology, College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences

(909) 869-5085

M T W TH F | BY APPOINTMENT

About Me

Dr. James J. A. Blair is Associate Professor in Geography and Anthropology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He also teaches and advises graduate students at the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly Pomona. Blair holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Rooted in cultural and environmental anthropology, as well as human geography, Blair's research employs ethnographic and historical methods to advance the interdisciplinary fields of political ecology, science, technology and society (STS), and settler colonial studies. His work centers on energy, water and environmental justice, especially related to extractive industries, including mining, fossil fuels, dams, logging, and fishing. Specific case studies include: geothermal lithium extraction at the Salton Sea in California; lithium mining, hydroelectric dams, and industrial logging in Chile and Argentina; as well as offshore oil and commercial fishing in the Falkland Islands (Malvinas). Blair’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, Fulbright-IIE, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Mellon Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), 11th Hour Project/The Schmidt Family Foundation, and Hewlett Foundation. In addition to his research, Blair has professional experience as an expert consultant for non-profit organizations, law firms, and philanthropic foundations. He has served as an Equity Technical Advisor for Comite Civico del Valle, a Fellow with Climate & Community Institute, an International Advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), as well as Land Agency Coordinator for Sierra Club.

For more information visit: www.jamesjablair.com

Publications

BOOKS

Blair, James J. A. 2023. Salvaging Empire: Sovereignty, Natural Resources, and Environmental Science in the South Atlantic. Cornell University Press.

PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES

*Indicates student

Mulvaney, Dustin, James J. A. Blair, and Alida Cantor. 2025. “Sunrise at the Salton Sea: Environmental Justice, Land Use Change, and Hydrosocial Dynamics of Solar Energy Transitions in the Imperial Valley, California.” Sustainability Science 20 (June): 1433–52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-025-01698-4.

Cantor, Alida, Elizabeth Bartholomew*, Kate Berry, James J. A. Blair, Dustin Mulvaney, and Nancee Hunter. 2025. “Unseen Connections: A StoryMap Exploring Case Studies in Water-Energy Transitions and Environmental Justice.” The Geography Teacher 22 (2): 92–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/19338341.2025.2490584.

Britton, Alexa*, Luis Olmedo, Christian A. Torres, and James J. A. Blair. 2024. “Hydrosocial Imaginaries of Green Extractivism: Water-Energy Transitions and Geothermal Lithium Development at the Salton Sea in Imperial Valley, California.” The Extractive Industries and Society 20 (December): 101567. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2024.101567.

Blair, James J. A., Noel Vineyard*, Dustin Mulvaney, Alida Cantor, Ali Sharbat, Kate Berry, Elizabeth Bartholomew*, and Ariana Firebaugh Ornelas*. 2024. “Lithium and Water: Hydrosocial Impacts Across the Life Cycle of Energy Storage.” WIREs Water 11 (6): e1748. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1748

Blair, James J. A., Grant Gutierrez*, and Ramón Balcázar M.* 2023. “From Watershed Moment to Hydrosocial Movement: Patagonia Without Dams and the Free-Flowing Rivers Network in Chile.” Human Organization 82 (3): 288–303. https://doi.org/10.17730/1938-3525-82.3.288.

Blair, James J. A., Ramón M. Balcázar*, Javiera Barandiarán, and Amanda Maxwell. 2023. “The ‘Alterlives’ of Green Extractivism: Lithium Mining and Exhausted Ecologies in the Atacama Desert.” International Development Policy, 16 (April). https://journals.openedition.org/poldev/5284.

Blair, James J. A. 2022. “Tracking Penguins, Sensing Petroleum: ‘Data Gaps’ and the Politics of Marine Ecology in the South Atlantic.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 5 (1): 60–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848619882938.

Blair, James J. A. 2019. “South Atlantic Universals: Science, Sovereignty and Self-Determination in the Falkland Islands (Malvinas).” Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society 2 (1): 220–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2019.1633225.

Blair, James J. A. 2019. “Splintered Hinterlands: Public Anthropology, Environmental Advocacy, and Indigenous Sovereignty.” Journal of Ethnobiology 39 (1): 32–49. https://doi.org/10.2993/0278-0771-39.1.32.

Blair, James J. A. 2017. “Settler Indigeneity and the Eradication of the Non-Native: Self-Determination and Biosecurity in the Falkland Islands (Malvinas).” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 23 (3): 580–602. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12653.

REPORTS AND WHITE PAPERS

Blair, James J. A., Toni Symonds, Dustin Mulvaney, Ali Sharbat, Max Richardson, and Vanessa Galaviz. 2026. Power with a Purpose: Addressing Critical Gaps in Imperial County’s Lithium Valley Specific Plan. Comite Civico del Valle and the POWER Coalition. https://ccvhealth.org/reports/power-with-a-purpose.

Mulvaney, Dustin, Alida Cantor, Todd Vachon, and James J. A. Blair. 2026. Environmental and Community Impacts of Battery Energy Storage System Fires in Moss Landing, California. https://sites.google.com/pdx.edu/water-energy-justice/case-studies/moss-landing-battery-energy-storage?authuser=0.

Blair, James J. A., Emmett Hopkins, Tai Kondo Koester*, Kate Berry, Alida Cantor, Dustin Mulvaney, Thea Riofrancos, Toni Symonds, Noel Vineyard*, Bryce Sprauer*, Bethani Turley*, Thien-Kim Bui*, Reva Butensky*, and Lorena De La Puente Burlando*. 2025. Building Community Power: Community Benefits Agreements Across the Global Energy Supply Chain. Climate and Community Institute. https://climateandcommunity.org/research/cbas/.

Blair, James J. A., Vanessa Galaviz, and Jordan R. Sisson. 2025. The Devil is in the Details: Environmental Health Impacts of the Hell’s Kitchen Lithium and Power Project. Comite Civico del Valle and Earthworks. https://ccvhealth.org/reports/the-devil-is-in-the-details.

Blair, James J. A., Ramón Morales Balcázar*, Javiera Barandiarán, and Amanda Maxwell. 2022. Exhausted: How We Can Stop Lithium Mining from Depleting Water Resources, Draining Wetlands, and Harming Communities in South America. R: 21-10-A. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/exhausted-lithium-mining-south-america-report.pdf?tkd=8231967.

EDITED COLLECTIONS

Blair, James J. A. and Cindy Isenhour. 2022. “Negotiating the Crisis: Critical Perspectives on Climate Governance.” Society for Cultural Anthropology, Editors’ Forum: Hot Spots, June 23. https://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/series/negotiating-the-crisis.

Colectivo Situaciones. 2011. 19 and 20: Notes for a New Social Protagonism. Edited by James J. A. Blair, Malav Kanuga, and Stevphen Shukaitis. Translated by Nate Holdren and Sebastián Touza. Minor Compositions and Common Notions (Autonomedia).

BOOK CHAPTERS

Blair, James J. A., Ramón M. Balcázar*, Javiera Barandiarán, and Amanda Maxwell. 2023. “The ‘Alterlives’ of Green Extractivism: Lithium Mining and Exhausted Ecologies in the Atacama Desert.” In The Afterlives of Extraction: Alternatives and Sustainable Futures, edited by Filipe Calvo, Matthew Archer, and Asanda Benya. Brill Nijhoff. https://brill.com/display/title/64309

Blair, James J. A. 2022. “Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).” In The Palgrave Handbook of Global Sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38948-2_161-1.

Blair, James J. A. 2022. “Data Gaps: Penguin Science and Petrostate Formation in the Falkland Islands (Malvinas).” In The Nature of Data: Infrastructures, Environments, Politics, edited by Jenny Goldstein and Eric Nost. University of Nebraska Press.

Blair, James J. A. 2021. “Extractivismo Del Litio y El Problema de La Escala: Acción Climática Global y Justicia Ambiental Local.” In Salares Andinos: Ecología de Saberes Por La Protección de Nuestros Salares y Humedales, edited by Bárbara Jerez Henríquez, Sergio Uribe Sierra, and Ramón Morales Balcázar. Fundación Tantí. https://cl.boell.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/Libro_Salares%20Andinos_version_definitiva_castellano.pdf.

Blair, James J. A. 2006. “Just Garments, a Worker-Run Factory Tries to Wring the Sweat out of the Apparel Business.” In Current Economic Issues, 10th ed. Dollars & Sense.

BOOK REVIEWS

Blair, James J. A. 2015. Reseña bibliográfica Todo lo que necesitás saber sobre Malvinas por Federico Lorenz. Páginas 7 (13): 231-235. http://paginas.rosario-conicet.gob.ar/ojs/index.php/RevPaginas

Blair, James J. A. 2014. Review Essay “Recent Studies of Oil in Latin America: Conflicted Consultancy, Peaked Patrimony and Neoliberalismo.” The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 19 (3): 531-537. https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.12132

Blair, James J. A. 2014. Review of Land by Derek Hall. The Journal of Agrarian Change. 14 (4): 595-598. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12076

Blair, James J. A. 2013. Review of The Invention of the Jewish Gaucho: Villa Clara and the Construction of Argentine Identity by Judith Noemí Freidenberg. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 18 (3): 539-541. https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.12053

Blair, James J. A. 2013. Review of Flammable Societies: Studies on the Socio-Economics of Oil and Gas edited by John-Andrew McNeish and Owen Logan. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment (CAFE) 35 (1): 64-66. https://doi.org/10.1111/cuag.12007

PUBLIC WRITING

Blair, James J. A. and Vanessa Galaviz. 2026. “OP-ED: Lithium Valley must protect public health before it expands industry.” Imperial Valley Weekly, March 2. https://www.imperialvalleyweekly.com/opinion/op-ed-lithium-valley-must-protect-public-health-before-it-expands-industry/article_4965f1a6-6781-40ef-b956-90fe8ebbd685.html

Blair, James J. A. 2025. “Building Community Power: In-Depth Report Analyzes Community Benefits Agreements Across the Global Energy Supply Chain.” Climate & Community Institute, October 22. https://open.substack.com/pub/climatecommunityinstitute/p/building-community-power?r=1fr1jb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

Blair, James J. A. 2025. “OP-ED: Lithium Valley Must Empower Communities and Tribes.” Calexico Chronicle, September 15. https://calexicochronicle.com/2025/09/15/op-ed-lithium-valley-must-empower-communities-and-tribes/.

Cantor, Alida, James J. A. Blair, Dustin Mulvaney, Kate Berry, and Noel Vineyard*. 2024. “Water and renewable energy transitions.” The Geographer, Autumn https://issuu.com/rsgspubs/docs/rsgs_the_geographer_autumn_2024

Blair, James J. A. 2023. “The Falklands/Malvinas and Argentina’s Thatcherite Turn.” North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), December 13. https://nacla.org/argentina-thatcherite-turn-milei-falklands-malvinas

Blair, James J. A. 2023. “Avoiding Methodological Nationalism in a Disputed Overseas Territory.” University of Exeter: Research and Innovation Blog, July 18. https://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/institutes/sci/research/currentprojects/thefutureofglobalbritain/blogs/ - tab3

Blair, James J. A. and Ramón Balcázar*. 2022. “Plurinational Climate Action: Environmental Governance Beyond Green Extractivism.” Society for Cultural Anthropology, Editors’ Forum: Hot Spots, June 23. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/plurinational-climate-action-environmental-governance-beyond-green-extractivism

Blair, James J. A. and Cindy Isenhour. 2022. “Introduction: Negotiating the Crisis: Critical Perspectives on Climate Governance.” Society for Cultural Anthropology, Editors’ Forum: Hot Spots, June 23. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/introduction-negotiating-the-crisis

Maxwell, Amanda and James J. A. Blair. 2022. “Lithium Mining Must Not Dry Up the Atacama Desert.” NRDC Expert Blog. May 12. https://www.nrdc.org/bio/amanda-maxwell/lithium-mining-must-not-dry-atacama-desert

Carey-Webb, Jessica and James J. A. Blair. 2019. “Water Is a Right: The Parallel COP in Chile.” NRDC Expert Blog. December 23. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/jessica-carey-webb/water-right-parallel-cop-santiago

Blair, James J. A. 2019. “Revisiting Nahuelbuta (2 of 2).” NRDC Expert Blog. August 9. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/amanda-maxwell/revisiting-nahuelbuta-2-2

Blair, James J. A. 2019. “Revisiting Nahuelbuta (1 of 2).” NRDC Expert Blog. August 9. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/amanda-maxwell/revisiting-nahuelbuta-1-2

Blair, James J. A. 2018. “International Day of Indigenous Peoples: Free Nahuelbuta.” NRDC Expert Blog. August 9. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/james-blair/international-day-indigenous-peoples-free-nahuelbuta

Blair, James J. A. and Andrea Becerra. 2018. “Chile’s River Protector Network Rejects Alto Maipo Complex.” NRDC Expert Blog. July 9. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/james-blair/chiles-river-protector-network-rejects-alto-maipo-complex

Blair, James J. A. and Jennifer Skene. 2018. “Indigenous Lands in Canada & Colombia on World Heritage List.” NRDC Expert Blog. July 2. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/james-blair/indigenous-lands-canada-colombia-world-heritage-list

Blair, James J. A. 2018. “NAFTA to Canada: Face the Facts on Tar Sands Tailings Ponds.” NRDC Expert Blog. May 10. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/james-blair/nafta-canada-face-facts-tar-sands-tailings-ponds

Blair, James J. A. 2018. “Conservation and Community in Laguna San Ignacio.” NRDC Expert Blog. May 3. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/james-blair/conservation-and-community-laguna-san-ignacio

Blair, James J. A. 2018. “World Water Day: Chile’s New Wave of River Protectors.” NRDC Expert Blog. April 6. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/james-blair/world-water-day-chiles-new-wave-river-protectors

Blair, James J. A. 2018. “Chilean Courts Protect Patagonia’s Puelo and Cuervo Rivers.” NRDC Expert Blog. January 9. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/james-blair/chilean-courts-protect-patagonias-puelo-and-cuervo-rivers

Blair, James J. A. 2017. “Tar Sands Tailings Ponds: Out of Canada’s Control.” NRDC Expert Blog. December 21. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/james-blair/tar-sands-tailings-ponds-out-canadas-control

Blair, James J. A. and Andrés Anchondo. 2017. “Latin America 2017: Top Three Green Trends.” NRDC Expert Blog. December 19. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/james-blair/latin-america-2017-top-three-green-trends

Maxwell, Amanda, James J. A. Blair, and Andrea Becerra. 2017. “Protect Chile’s Patagonia with Clean Energy Alternatives to Mega Dams.” ESRI Story Map hosted on NRDC Expert Blog. February 7. https://www.nrdc.org/resources/protect-chiles-patagonia-clean-energy-alternatives-mega-dams

Blair, James J. A. 2016. “The Limits of Environmentalism at Earth’s End: Reindeer Eradication and the Heritage of Hunting in the Sub-Antarctic.” Engagement, blog published by the Anthropology and Environment Society. December 20. https://aesengagement.wordpress.com/2016/12/20/the-limits-of-environmentalism-at-earths-end-reindeer-eradication-and-the-heritage-of-hunting-in-the-sub-antarctic/

Blair, James J. A. 2016. “Brexit’s South American Ripple Effect.” North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA). August 4. http://nacla.org/news/2016/08/04/brexit%E2%80%99s-south-american-ripple-effect

Blair, James J. A. 2014. “Treasure Islands? Oil and Gas in the Falklands.” The Economist. February 28. http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2014/02/oil-and-gas-falklands

Blair, James J. A. 2013. “Self-Determined: Argentina, The Falklands and the UN.” The Economist. August 8. http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2013/08/argentina-falklands-and-un

Blair, James J. A. 2013. “Referendum rewound: The Falkland Islands.” The Economist. June 21. http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2013/06/falkland-islands

Blair, James J. A. 2013. “Loud and clear: The Falklands referendum.” The Economist. Print edition, March 16-22: 40. https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2013/03/16/loud-and-clear

Blair, James J. A. 2013. “Sending their message: The Falkland Islands’ referendum.” The Economist. March 11. http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2013/03/falkland-islands-referendum

James J. A. Blair, Ph.D.

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