Asselin, Jodie

Associate Professor

Anthropology Department

Phone
(403) 317-2878
Email
jodie.asselin@uleth.ca

About Me

Jodie is an associate professor of environmental anthropology at the University of Lethbridge. Her research focuses on the intersection of rural culture and resource extraction in the Global North, often by examining forest politics and rural livelihoods. Her work focuses on applying qualitative methods and theories to pressing contemporary environmental problems and foregrounding the importance of rural voices in resource decision making.

In 2025 Dr. Asselin she was a research fellow at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and a visiting academic at University College Cork. She currently holds a SSHRC Insight Development Grant that examines the cultural role of forests in Irish rural landscapes, and contributes to a number of Canadian rural resource-oriented research projects. Dr. Asselin is also a board member of the Parkland Institute, an Alberta-wide non-partisan research center,  co-runs the Community Bridge Lab, a collaborative research space for qualitative and community-engaged research, and established FORAGE, a network of anthropologists working on forest-related projects in the global north. 

Biography

Founder of FORAGE, the Forest Anthropology Working Group on Europe and Beyond https://foragenetwork.org/

Founding Member of the Community Bridge Lab for qualitative and community-engaged research https://www.ulethbridge.ca/liberal-education/community-bridge-lab-university-lethbridge

Co-Director of the Center for Oral History and Tradition, University of Lethbridge (2021-2024) https://www.ulethbridge.ca/research/centres-institutes/centre-oral-history-and-tradition


2020 onward: Associate Professor of Anthropology, 2021-2023- Co-Director for the Center of Oral History and Tradition

2015-2019: Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Lethbridge

2013-2015: Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Family Medicine, University of Alberta

2013: PhD in Cultural Anthropology: Faculty of Arts, Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB, Canada.

2007: MA in Cultural Anthropology: Faculty of Arts, Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB, Canada.

2004: BA in Human Geography and Anthropology , Department of Geography, Department of Anthropology, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Current Research

Jodie has an active research program in Europe and Canada. She is currently working on the SSHRC-funded project Forest Stories, a counter-mapping project that explores sites of landscape change to record and acknowledge site loss within forest plantations, while also assessing the implications for forested futures in rural Ireland. This work is part of a broader project on forests in the global north, that includes two edited manuscripts currently contracted to press. The first focuses on the concept of political forests in Europe, the second examines the idea of arboreal nationalism in the global north. In addition, Dr. Asselin is collaborating with two other researchers on an Enhancing Environmental Science in Alberta project, which focuses on anthropogenic factors affecting the upper Oldman River watershed ecology.

Publications

Books

2025     Asselin, J Troublesome Ground: Farming Trees and Green Policy in Rural Ireland. University Press of Colorado. https://www.ubcpress.ca/troublesome-ground?fbclid=IwY2xjawMxFs1leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFKNFhmVldqYkxvaEtiU01YAR49CGeayNLaMZTMhRbR6NL1qFkwC6j7jBPl8o_JwXV4gzoI9PvNmNu3-v4RGQ_aem_7jGaKwkLAbCrMGbZFfrLlw


Peer Reviewed Articles in Environmental Anthropology

2025     Spencer, R. and Asselin, J. "You Gotta Keep Your Shoulder to the Mountain and Keep Pushing” Grassroots Labour of Hope in Environmentalism. Special Issue: Struggles for Hope: Negotiating Future(s) in Times of Global Crises. Journal for Development Policy. 2, 14-35

2025     Konczal, A., and Asselin, J. Exploring the Green Frontier Within Europe’s Recent Forest Initiatives. Geoforum, 160, 1-10

2022     Asselin, J. Asselin, G. Egli, F. The Discursive Context of Forest in Land Use Documents: An Irish Case Study. In Nature and Culture. 17 (2)

2022     Asselin, J. Plantation Politics and Discourse: Forests and Property in Upland Ireland. In Economic Anthropology. Vol 9:2, 336-348 DOI:10.1002/sea2.12244

2021     Asselin, J. Put Your Body into It: Exploring Imagination Through Enskillment in Outdoor Women’s Camps. In Kasubowski-Houston, M. and Auslander, M. (Eds) In Search of Lost Futures: Anthropological Explorations in Multimodality, Deep Interdisciplinarity, And Autoethnography. Palgrave Macmillan, Gewerbestrasse.

2019     Asselin, J. Outdoor Women: Thinking about Gender, Environment, and Hunting Through Rural Enskillment Programs. Anthropologica, 61, 283-295 .

2016     Asselin, J. Experience and Place Making in Contested Forests. Journal Of Sustainability Education. Feb 11, 1-16. 

2013     Fletcher F., Hibbert, A., Robertson, F., Asselin, J. Needs and Readiness Assessments: Tools for Promoting Community-University Engagement with Aboriginal Communities. Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement. Vol 6, 131-149.

2013     Asselin, J., Konczal, A. Shifting Perceptions: A Comparative Case Study of Forest Perceptions in Yukon, Canada and The Tuchola Forest Region of Poland. Studies and Materials of the Forest Culture Centrein Gołuchów (Studia i Materiały Ośrodka Kultury Leśnej w Gołuchowie). 12, 9-23.

2013     Asselin, J. If a Tree Falls, for Whom does it Make a Sound? Multilocality and Multivocality in Yukon Forests. Nuttall, M., Tervo-Kankare, K., Karjalainen, T. P. (eds.) Nordia Geographical Publications Yearbook: Negotiating Resources, Engaging People. Human Environment Relations in the North 2012.  41(5) 61-83.

2009     Asselin, J., and Parkins, J. The Comparative Case Study as Social Impact Assessment: Possibilities and Limitations for Anticipating Social Change in The Far North. Journal of Social Indicators Research. 94:483-497.


Works Accepted for Publication

n.d.        Asselin, J (n.d.) The Human Nature of Northern Wilderness: Tracing Forest Use in the Yukon Territory Since the Klondike Gold Rush. In Graeme Wynn (ed) Canada’s Forests: Thematic Perspectives (Volume I). ANU Press. Final edits with publisher.

n.d.        Asselin, J. Konczal A. The Contribution of Anthropology to Natural Resource Management. In Fiona Nunan (Ed) Sustainable Natural Resource Management: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Edward Elgar Press. Anticipated publication 2026.


Working Manuscripts

Asselin, J., Konczal A. (Eds) An Anthropology of Political Forests in Europe. Manchester University Press. Contract offered. Anticipated submission in early 2026

Asselin, J. Konczal, A., Benvegnu, D. (Eds), Arboreal Nationalism in the Global North. Proposal stage.



Research Interests

Environmental anthropology
Political Forests
Rural and northern North America, Circumpolar North
Rural Ireland
Rural/urban relations
Place
Environmental use and perception in the context of land use planning
Environmental history

I also have an interest in interdisciplinary dynamics and cross-discipline methodologies, specifically in relation to contemporary medical research teams.

Personal Website