Scholars
Jonna Yarrington
Colorado State University
Based in
United States
North America
Jonna Yarrington, Ph.D., is a sociocultural and historical anthropologist, focusing on the effects of climate change on human societies and engaging issues of environmental and climate justice in a diversity of settings.
Jonna researches social, cultural, and economic liabilities, including for practices of ownership, tenancy, and loss of land and houses, as well as effects for kinship, role succession, and social stratification generally.
Jonna is currently publishing the results of her long-term ethnographic and archival fieldwork on Tangier Island, Virginia, in the Chesapeake Bay. She has also conducted anthropological research in Norfolk, Virginia (2021-2023) and in Williamsburg, Virginia (2008-2010). With multiple field sites in the U.S. and the Caribbean, Jonna has also contributed to and organized projects in rural northern Haiti and coastal French Guiana since 2009.
Jonna is a Program Co-Chair in the Anthropology & Environment Section of the American Anthropological Association (AAA).
Country(ies) of Specialty
France Haiti United StatesFocus areas of expertise
Climate policy and politics History Climate Justice Social movementsPublications
Book Manuscripts
Tangier Island project (in preparation).
Sugar history project (in preparation).
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Forthcoming. Yarrington, J. “Channel Effects: The Political Afterlife
of Maintenance Dredging on Tangier Island, Virginia, USA.” Human Ecology.
2018. Yarrington, J. “Sucre Indigène and Sucre Colonial: Reconsidering the Splitting of the French National Sugar Market, 1800-1860.” Economic Anthropology 5(1):20-31. https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12099
2018. Yarrington, J. “Producing the Periphery.” In Locating Guyane eds. C. MacLeod and S. Wood. Liverpool University Press, 91-104. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv8j65s
2014. Yarrington, J. “Messages from my Father-in-Law: Indexing Membership and Proximity in Long-Distance Voicemails.” Language and Communication 38:24-33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2014.06.001
Book Reviews
2024. Review of Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation, S. Vaughn. Transforming Anthropology 32(1). https://doi.org/10.1086/730089
2013. Review of Tectonic Shifts: Haiti Since the Earthquake, M. Schuller and P. Morales, eds., New West Indian Guide (NWIG) 88(1/2).
2012. Review of Haiti Rising: Haitian History, Culture and the Earthquake of 2010, M. Munro, ed. New West Indian Guide (NWIG) 86(3/4).
Media
2024. Yarrington, J. “Gentrification as Coastal Planning in the Mermaid City.” Theorizing the Contemporary, Fieldsights, January 25. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/gentrification-as-coastal-planning-in-the-mermaid-city
2023. Yarrington, J. “Land Trusts May be Solution to Climate-Driven Housing Squeeze.” The Virginian-Pilot Guest Opinion (Op Ed), 18 February. https://sustainability.virginia.edu/land-trusts-may-be-solution-climate-driven-housing-shortage
Technical Reports
2023. Yarrington, J. “Environmental Justice Project Manual for Practitioners: From Idea to Intervention.” Manual for the Environmental Justice Policy Clinic, Repair Lab, Karsh Institute of Democracy, University of Virginia.
2023. Yarrington, J. “Life Lessons: Teaching Water Safety to Address Environmental Injustice and Health Inequity in Norfolk, Virginia.” Report for the Environmental Justice Policy Clinic, Repair Lab, Karsh Institute of Democracy, University of Virginia.