Kyrstin Mallon Andrews

KYRSTIN MALLON ANDREWS, then a graduate student at University of California, Irvine, California, was awarded funding in April 2018 to aid research on ‘Crosscurrents of Health: Understandings of Risk, Environment, and Identity in the Dominican Republic,’ supervised by Dr. Leo Chavez. This project explored notions and practices of health in humanenvironment relations through research with diver fishermen and their experiences with the bends in changing marine environments of the Dominican Republic. As marine environments in the Caribbean rapidly change as a result of river runoff, coastal pollution, and overfishing, diver fishermen must navigate increasing physical risks of their work alongside emerging conservation interventions in fishing communities, including fishing bans and marine parks. Through interviews and participant observation with fishermen and conservation officials, this project explored shifting perceptions of health, risk, and environment. Drawing connections between declining marine health and experiences of risk among divers, this project illuminates how fishermen’s health gets excluded from conversations about marine conservation, despite the focal role of fishing in regional discussions of changing climates. This research shows how risk and political marginalization come to shape human-environment relations through changing ocean ecosystems, politics of ocean conservation, and longstanding structures of power shaping inequality in Caribbean communities.