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Lauren M. Baker

Program Area(s):  Comparative Politics; Political Theory

Regional Specialization(s):  Middle East

Dissertation Title:

Trash Talk: Sanitizing the politics of garbage at sites of global environmental governance in the MENA

Dissertation Committee:  Pearlman, Wendy (Chair); Shakman Hurd, Beth; Suiseeya, Kim Marion; O'Neill, Kate

Research Interests:  Environmental politics, discard studies, authoritarian regimes, infrastructure, qualitative methods, interpretive methods, ethnography, discourse analysis

Conference Presentations:

  • "Ethnography of Spectacle: Studying Garbage at Sites of Global Environmental Governance." International Studies Association Annual Convention, April 2023.
  • "Regime Greenwashing: Competing environmentalisms and the legacies of hosting COP22 in Morocco." International Studies Association Annual Convention, April 2023.
  • "How Accessibility Shapes Global Environmental Governance." (Coauthored with Diana Elhard, Alex Anderson, Margaret O'Connell, Kim Marion Suiseeya.) Earth Systems Governance Conference, October 2022.
  • "The Case for Waste." Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) Workshop: Environmental Politics in the MENA. Invited workshop. February 2022
  • "International Negotiations and Research in the Age of COVID." Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference, April 2022.
  • "Sanitizing the politics of garbage at sites of global environmental governance in the MENA." Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Conference.
  • "Regime Greenwashing: Morocco’s (selective) environmentalism for authoritarian legitimation." American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Conference, September 2021.
  • "Trash Talk: How rhetoric of development sanitizes the politics of garbage." Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) Annual Conference, April 2021.
  • "The Politics of Garbage in the Middle East and North Africa." American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Conference, September 2020.
  • "What Counts as “Green”: The Politics of Contrasting Environmentalism(s) in Morocco." Muslim Studies Program 13th Annual Conference: Islam, Environmental Science, and Conservation.

Publications:

Honors/Awards:

  • MENA Graduate Research Grant, 2022
  • Buffett Global Impacts Fellow, AY 2021-2022
  • Project on Middle East Politics, Travel Research Engagement Grant, 2021
  • Northwestern Buffett Dissertation Research Travel Award, 2021
  • Minar Memorial Summer, 2019
  • Morris Goodman Award, Program on African Studies, 2019