Michael Watts

Professor, Class of 1963 Chair
Ph.D. University of Michigan, 1979
Regional focus: Africa

Professor Watts' recent work: Curse of the Black Gold:

Click on the image above to go to curseoftheblackgoldbook.com

Professor Watts' most recent research: Economies of Violence: Petroleum, Politics and Community Conflict in the Niger Delta, Nigeria

Website: Niger Delta: Economies of Violence
Links to Working Papers

Professor Watts has developed a website on writing and crafting a dissertation prospectus
Go directly to the site: http://iis.berkeley.edu/DissPropWorkshop/
Explanation of the site below.

Political economy, political ecology, Africa, South Asia, development, peasant societies, social and cultural theory, U.S. agriculture, Islam and social movements, the energy transition, resource conflicts, the oil industry.

At the centre of my research and teaching interests is a longstanding engagement with theories of political economy and in particular  energy and agro-food sectors in Africa. My own training at University College, London and at the University of Michigan was firmly grounded in Anthropology, Ecology and Sociology, initially with a focus on the understanding the vulnerability of peasant communities in semi-arid Africa and the dynamics of subsistence and famine crises. My doctoral research was based on long term field research in northern Nigeria and generated a lifelong concern with questions of food security, rural differentiation and the agrarian question. While at Berkeley I have tried to deepen my understanding of the intersections between political economy, culture and power, a set of interests I share with a number of my colleagues in the department from whom I have benefited greatly.   Over the last decade I have devoted most of my time to the energy sector and to the impact of oil in the Gulf of Guinea.

During the 1980s and 1990s I have been able to both expand my interests in Africa with fieldwork in Senegambia on gender and household dynamics and irrigation politics, and to continue my work in Nigeria on Islam, and the political economy and political ecology of oil. Concurrent with these interests I have a longstanding interst in the agro-food system also been able to explore a number of agrarian issues in California and the US most notably rice in California, and the poultry industry. My two current book projects focus on a history of oil in Nigeria, and a history of postwar US capitalism seen through the poultry sector.   Over the last five years I have been working closely with New York photographer Ed Kashi.

For ten years I served as the Director of a research institute, the Institute of International Studies (1994-2004), which promotes cross-area and cross-disciplinary research and training on transnational and global issues. I established with Nancy Peluso the Berkeley Working Group on Environmental Politics, the major centre for cross disciplinary political ecological research on the Berkeley campus. In addition I have served as the director of the Africa Studies Center, of the Rotary Peace Fellows program, and co-direct our undergraduate Development Studies Program (a degree granting inter-disciplinary program with almost 100 majors).

I have had occasion to work with various development organizations and philanthropic institutions. I have worked for UNDP, the Ford Foundation, OXFAM, and a number of small NGOs in Africa (most recently Environmental Rights Action and Our Niger Delta in Nigeria).  I serve on the Board of a number of non-profits including the Pacific Institute in Oakland and have given testimony of human and environmental rights in Nigeria to Congress and other policy groups in Washington DC.

I have been privileged to work with some brilliant students at Berkeley over the last 20 years and encourage in their work a sensitivity to rigorous, theoretically-oriented and systematic field research (what one might call "global ethnography").  I developed a website devoted to the process of helping students develop a research prospectus (see http://iis.berkeley.edu/DissPropWorkshop/).

Selected publications

Books:

2010. Global Political Ecology.  Editors, Michael Watts, Paul Robbins and Richard Peet. London: Routledge.

2008. The Curse of the Black Gold.  With Ed Kashi (photographer).  New York: Powerhouse Press.

2001 Violent Environments.  Edited with Nancy Peluso.  Ithaca:  Cornell University Press.

2000 The Hettner Lectures:  Geographies of Violence.  Heidelberg:  University of Heidelberg.

2000/05/09 Dictionary of Human Geography.  Edited with Ron Johnston, Gerry Pratt and Derek Gregory.  Oxford: Blackwell (expanded Third edition published 2009).

1998/2007 Encyclopaedia of Sub-Saharan Africa.  Co-Editor.  New York: Simon and Schuster. (4 volumes) [Awarded the African Studies Association Conover-Porter Prize for Reference Books, 2000].   An enlarged five volume second edition appeared in 2007.

1997 Globalizing Food:  Agrarian Questions and Global Restructuring. Edited with David Goodman.  London: Routledge.

1996/2004 Liberation Ecologies:  Environment, Development, Social Movements.  Edited with Richard Peet.  LondonRoutledge. Second edition with 8 new chapters and new introduction).

1995 Geographies of Global Change:  Remapping the World in the Late Twentieth Century.  Edited with P. Taylor and R.J. Johnston.  Oxford: Basil Blackwell. [Second Edition in 1998; the Third Edition in 2002 had eight new chapters, a new introduction and conclusion, and section essays by the editors].

1994 Living Under Contract:  Contract Farming and Agrarian Transformation in Africa.  Edited book with Dr. Peter Little.  Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

1992 Reworking Modernity:  Capitalisms and Symbolic Discontent.  New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. (with Allan Pred).

1987 State, Oil and Agriculture in Nigeria.  Edited with an Introduction by Michael Watts, University of California, Berkeley: Institute of International Studies Press.

1983 Silent Violence:  Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria.  Berkeley: University of California Press.  [runner-up for Herskovitz Prize, 1984]

2010           Ed Kashi: Curse of the Black Gold, PORTFOLIO,  51, May, pp.34-44.

2010          Foreword:  Insurgency and the prospects fro development and democracy in the Niger delta, in  K. Aaron and D. Geoerge (eds)., Placebo as Medicine: The Poverty of Development Intervention And Conflict Resolution Strategies in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, Port Harcourt, pp.vii-xii.

Forthcoming     Editor of a special issue of the Journal of African Development, including the Introduction (with Drs Ibaba and Osagie), lead paper ‘The Rule of Oil: Petro-Politics and the Anatomy of An Insurgency’,  Volume 11, # 2.

2010             Oil City:   Petro-Landscapes and Sustainable Future, in Gareth Doherty & Mohsten Mostafavi  (ed)., Ecological Urbanism.  Baden: Lars Muller Publishers, pp.420-430.

Forthcoming      Gould’s Book of Fish, in C.Withers and H. Lorimer (ed).,  Geographers: Bibliographical Studies,    Volume 29, London: Continuum.

2009            Now and Then, Antipode, 41/6, pp. 1152-1168 (reprinted in N. Castree et al., (eds)., The Point is to Change It.  Oxford: Blackwell, 2010, pp.10-26).

2009            Reflections, Development and Change, 40/5,  1191-1214.

2009          27 new entries, in  The Dictionary of Human Geography, Editors Derek Gregory, Michael Watts et al., (Fifth Edition).  London: Blackwell.

Forthcoming    Typewriters of the Illiterate, in Stephen Reyna and Andrea Behrends (eds)., An Anthropology of Oil, Oxford, Berghahn.

2009           Neo-colonialism, and Developmentalism, in Nigel Thrift and Rob Kitchin (editors)., International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Oxford, Elsevier, Volume 3, pp.123-130, and Volume 7 pp.360-64.

2009           Radicalism, Writ Large and Small, in Jonathan Pugh (ed).,  What Is Radical Politics Today?, London., Palgrave, pp.103-112.

2009          Slipping into Darkness: Nigeria on the brink, Counterpunch, August 12^th (http://www.counterpunch.org/watts08122009.html).

2009           Oil, Development and the Politics of the Bottom Billion, MacCalaster International, Volume 24 (summer), 79-130.

2009          Has Globalization failed in Nigeria?  Q5 (Yale School of Management),  Spring Issue, pp.72-79.

2008           Exploitation, in William Darity (editor)., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences,   New York, Gale, Volume 2, 63-65.

2008          Petroleum in Africa, Encyclopedia of the Modern World, New York, Oxford University Press., Volume 3 (e-reference editions hhtp://www.oxford-modernworld.com/entry?entry=t254.e1233-s2).

2008          Soft machine: Notes on Oil Addiction, Human Geography 1/2., pp.33-41.

2008          Nigeria: les guerilleros de l’or noir.  Alternatives Internationales, #41, December, pp.16-19.

2008          The Totality for Grownups (RETORT), Public Culture, 20/3, pp.583-595.

2008          What might resistance to neoliberalism consist of? In James McCarthy and Scott Prudham (eds)., Neoliberal Environments. London, Routledge, pp. 273-279.

2008          The Price of our oil addiction, in David Elliot Cohen (ed)., What Matters.  Sterling Publishers: New York/London, pp.222-242.

2008          Blood Oil: Anatomy of an oil insurgency in the Niger Delta, FOCAAL: European Journal of  Anthropology, 52/08, pp.18-38.

2008           The Southern Question, in C. Kay and H.Akram-Lodhi (eds)., Peasants and Globalization. London:  Routledge, pp.262-288.

2008          Economies of Violence., in Amita Baviska (Editor).,Contested Grounds: Essays on Nature, Culture and Power. New Delhi, Oxford University Press, p..1061-36.

2008          Economies of Violence: More Blood, More Oil, in A.Baviskar (ed)., Contested Grounds: Essays on Nature, Culture and Power. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp.106-136.

2008          Imperial Oil: The anatomy of an oil insurgency, in Erdkunde, 62/1, pp.27-39.

2008            Anatomy of an oil insurgency, in K. Omeje (ed)., Extractive Economies and Conflicts in the Global South. London: Ashgate, pp.51-74.

2007          Petro-Insurgency or Criminal Syndicate?, Review of African Political Economy, No.114, pp.637-660.

2007           So Goes Port Harcourt….: Violence and Political Disorder in the Niger Delta, CSIS Forum, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington  DC.( http://forums.csis.org/africa/?cat=8).

2007  Crisis in Nigeria, Alexander’s Oil and Gas Journal, 12/2, January 31^st 2007 (http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/nta70590.htm) [reprinted as ‘Oil Inferno’ in Counterpunch January 2007).

2007       Revolutionary Islam and Modern Terror, Allan Pred and Derek Gregory (eds)., Violent Geographies, London, Routledge.

2006          An Exchange on Afflicted Powers.  October 115, pp,3-13.

2006       Neither There War nor their Peace/All Quiet on the Eastern Front, in Okwui Enwezor (ed)., The Unhomely.  BIACS @: Seville, pp.27-31 (reprinted in New Left Review, 41, September 2006, pp.88-92.), RETORT.

2006           The Liberal International (with I.Boal), Radical Philosophy, #140, December 2006, pp.40-45.

2006           Empire of Oil, Monthly Review,  Vol. 58/4, pp.1-16.

2006        The Sinister Life of the Community in G. Creed (ed)., The Seductions of Community.  School of American Research, Santa Fe, pp. 101-142.

Writing and Crafting A Dissertation Prospectus: A Website for Students
http://iis.berkeley.edu/DissPropWorkshop/

Writing research and grant proposals is one of the most difficult -- and unavoidable -- requirements of graduate study in the social sciences. When it comes time to write them, however, many graduate students feel left to their own devices. This website is designed to help you navigate the hazards this process entails.

This site comprises a collection of tips, samples, and links. It is not meant as a class, nor a substitute for feedback from colleagues and advisors. It is merely an amiable guide meant to help you through an important phase in your academic career. Although biased in favor of "area studies" specialists and those planning to spend extended periods overseas, the content of this workshop is intended to be useful for all students hoping to conduct empirical social-scientific fieldwork.

Effective research or funding proposals are products of what is often a long, lonely, and frustrating process. What is more, many social science graduate students face this challenge with little guidance from teachers or supervisors. While significant differences exist among projects, disciplines, and funders, this site is intended to provide guidance on some common objectives and obstacles. It raises questions to consider, reflections from those who have survived the process, and sage advice from those who are likely to read and evaluate your proposal. It is intended for those just thinking about a research proposal and for those who are already further along.

The site is organized into five inter-related sections, all accessible from the home page. Each of these sub-sections is oriented to a some specific aspect of the grant writing process and includes a series of concise priority lists, links, and samples. There is no best way to use this site. We suggest you spend a couple of minutes looking around to see what might be useful for you now, and what you might need later on. If there is something specific you want to find, or a page you want to re-visit, please use the search engine included on the home page. What follows below is a brief description of the site's five major sub-sections.

The site's process and parameters section provides the most explicit advice. Here you will find both general guidelines for what to do (and what to avoid) as well critical characteristics of the proposal's various sections (e.g., the introduction, methodology, etc.). The nuts and bolts section works as a supplement, providing key practical advice as to how to piece together your work; finding an appropriate and realistic research design, developing a budget, and other concrete tasks which are often ignored in departments' methodology classes. Our style section offers tips on crafting the proposal as a written document; editing, integrating, and revising. Examples of successful proposals and commentaries from their authors (on both the writing process and their post-field work impressions of their original ideas) are found in the examples area. We have organized these by both discipline and funding body, so you can find those are most relevant to your own work. If you are still searching for the right funder, or feel you need further information on grant writing, the resources section may be just what you need.

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