LAS LOOKING GLASS

Can such a little machete really have a huge environmental impact?

For his research on Haitian timber cutters, Paul Bick, a PhD student in anthropology, was named a finalist in this year’s Image of Research competition. The Image of Research is an annual interdisciplinary exhibit competition sponsored by the UIC Graduate College to showcase the breadth and diversity of research at UIC. Each year, students enrolled in a UIC graduate or professional degree program are invited to submit an image they have created along with a brief explanation of how the image relates to the their overall research. A multi-disciplinary jury reviews the submissions. Here Bick describes his research on the timber cutters and how they affect the Haitian environment.

"Timber cutters have worked the high reaches of Haiti’s culturally and biologically rich Massif de la Hotte for many generations. The creation of an unfunded national park in the area some 20 years ago has done little to alter long-standing patterns of extraction and environmentality, although the project’s criminalization of certain livelihood practices has produced new frictions in mountain communities and altered the shape of the region’s political ecology.

Paul Bick

"My work in Haiti seeks to untangle this dynamic political ecology. Timber harvesting in southwestern Haiti is carried out by small teams of cutters, who, often equipped with only hand-forged tools, can take a month or more to reduce a tree to boards. The rough-sawn boards are then carried one-at-a-time more than 20 km to collection sites at lower elevations where they are loaded onto trucks for shipment to lumber markets in Port-au-Prince and other urban centers. Although frequently targets of blame and derision, such non-intensive forms of extraction actually contribute little to Haiti’s ecological crisis, which has long historical, political and socio-economic roots, stretching far beyond the borders of Haiti itself."

An exhibit featuring the winners and the finalists from the Image of Research competition is displayed in the lobby of the UIC Richard J. Daley Library every spring. The winning entries can also be found at the Library of Health Sciences, with a selection of images featured on light pole banners around campus.

To learn more about Paul Bick’s fellow finalists in the 2009 Image of Research competition, visit the UIC Graduate College website.