Ian Parker

Dr. Parker is an environmental anthropologist focused on interactions between people and the environment, climate change, governance, and ethics. At GWU, he is a professorial lecturer at the Elliott School of International Affairs, teaching courses in international environmental policy. 

Since 2011, Parker has pursued mixed methods research, including joint research with Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UC San Diego into social dimensions of ecological and climate change, small-scale fisheries, eco-tourism and governance. Dr. Parker's doctoral research at the University of California, San Diego investigated social aspects of natural resource management and eco-tourism in the biodiversity hotspot of the Raja Ampat islands of Indonesia’s West Papua Province. The research explored to what extent marine conservation initiatives intersect or differ from local understandings of resource protection. It also focused on how human interactions with marine and terrestrial resources are a setting for the creation and reshaping of social bonds across cultural and institutional barriers. 

His second main research focus is ethnographic research in international relations, particularly among institutions involved in global environmental diplomacy including the UN Climate Conference, where he has served as a lead U.S. negotiator for the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform to the UNFCCC.