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Rob Efird, PhD — Faculty ; Professor ; Asian And Asian American Studies Program , College of Arts & Sciences .

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Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies

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  2. Rob Efird, PhD

I’m a cultural anthropologist with interests in the environmental humanities, environmental learning, and human relationships with plants. I conduct research in China, Japan and the Pacific Northwest.

Publications

  • Efird, R. 2026. “All Our Relationships: Settler Translations of Indigenous Relations with Plants.” In Shoreman-Ouimet E., Fredlund,J. and Kopnina H. eds. Routledge Handbook of Environmental Anthropology, 2nd edition. London: Routledge
  • Efird, R. and L. Lynn, eds. "Indigenous Perspectives and Environmental Education: Connecting Youth with Plants, Places and Cultural Traditions." Clearing: Journal of Environmental Education in the Cascadian Bioregion (Summer 2022)
  • Efird, R. 2020. “Nature for Nurture in Urban Chinese Childrearing.” A. Esarey, M.A. Haddad, S. Harrell and J. Lewis, eds. Greening East Asia: The Rise of the Eco-Developmental State. Seattle: University of Washington Press
  • Efird, R. 2018. “Nature Schools and China’s Environmental Education.” K. Kennedy and J. C.-K. Lee, eds. Routledge Handbook on Schooling in Asia, 686-692. New York: Routledge
  • Efird, R. 2016. “Perceiving Nature’s Personhood: Anthropological Enhancements to Environmental Education.” In Kopnina H. and Shoreman-Ouimet E., eds. Routledge Handbook of Environmental Anthropology, 441-451. New York: Routledge
  • Efird, R. 2015. “Learning Places and ‘Little Volunteers’: an Assessment of Place- and Community-based Education in China.” Environmental Education Research. Vol. 21, No. 8: 1143-1154
  • Efird, R. 2014. “Closing the Green Gap: Policy and Practice in Chinese Environmental Education.” In Lee and Efird, eds. Schooling for Sustainable Development across the Pacific, 279-292. Dordrecht: Springer.
  • Efird, R. 2012. “Learning the Land beneath Our Feet: The Place of NGO-led Environmental Education in Yunnan Province.” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 21, No. 76: 569-583.
  • Efird, R. 2012. “Regionalism and Ethnic Dis-integration: Li Ying’s Yasukuni and the Co-creation(s) of East Asia.” In Ben-Ari and Otmazgin, eds. Popular Culture Co-productions in East and Southeast Asia, 171-184. Kyoto and Singapore: Kyoto University Press and National University of Singapore Press.
  • Efird, R. 2011. “Japan’s ‘War Orphans’: Identification and State Responsibility.” In Caroline Rose, ed. Sino-Japanese Relations: Critical Concepts, Vol. II, 281-304. New York: Routledge.
  • Efird, R. 2010. “Distant Kin: Japan’s War Orphans and the Limits of Ethnicity.” Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 4: 805-834.