Bret Gustafson

Bret Gustafson is a social anthropologist whose current teaching and research examines the negative impacts of fossil fuels on nature, society, and political systems. On campus, his course ‘‘Global Energy and the American Dream” examines the links between American energy usage cultures and the global impacts of fossil fuels.  He also teaches a research practicum called “Ethnographic Fieldwork: Energy Politics” which examines the social and political obstacles to renewable energy transition in St. Louis and Missouri. He has been closely involved with student and community efforts to understand and critique the negative environmental and public health impacts of coal in the St. Louis region.  In his spare time he continues his primary research on indigenous movements in Latin America, and is completing a book on Bolivia’s natural gas boom and its impacts on inequality and democracy.