Jeffrey Hoelle

Specialization:  Sociocultural Anthropology (environmental anthropology; ethnography; agriculture, land change and deforestation; Latin America; Brazilian Amazon)

Education

Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Florida
M.A., Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin

Research

My research explores the social, cultural, and political-economic dimensions of environmental transformation and deforestation in frontier Amazonia.  My book, Rainforest Cowboys: The Rise of Ranching and Cattle Culture in Western Amazonia, won the 2016 Book Prize from the Brazil Section the Latin American Studies Association. The Portuguese translation of the book is available for free download here. My new book, Cultivated: Plants, Hair and the Aesthetic of Control (Yale University Press), analyzes an "ideology of control" linking frontier land cultivation to personal grooming practices. During the 2021-2022 academic year, I was on sabbatical at Latin American Centre and the School of Environment and Geography at University of Oxford. Along with Brazilian colleague Valerio Gomes, I led the inaugural Fulbright Amazonia Initiative (2022-2024). Along with students, I run the IV Ethnobotany Project, a local project that aims to connect the UCSB community with the environment.

Projects

• The anthropology of environmental degradation in the Brazilian Amazon
• The function and aesthetics of everyday forms of nature control and domination
• Cross-cultural comparison of cattle economies, cattle cultures, and beef consumption
• Integrating culture into land use-land change frameworks, theory, and modeling
• Local Research Project on Plants and People: The IV Ethnobotany Project 
• Fulbright Amazonia Initiative

Publications

Books

• Cultivated: Plants, Hair and the Aesthetic of Control. Yale University Press. Agrarian Studies Series. May 2026.  
• Caubóis da Floresta: O Crescimento da Pecuária e a Cultura de Gado na Amazônia Brasileira. EDUFAC- Editoria da Universidade Federal do Acre (Brazil), 2021. (Portuguese-language translation of Rainforest Cowboys)
• Rainforest Cowboys: The Rise of Ranching and Cattle Culture in Western Amazonia. University of Texas Press, 2015.

Articles

• Greenleaf, M, Hoelle, J, Medeiros, M & Tavares, D. (2023) Forest Policy and Governance Innovation at the Subnational Scale: Insights from Acre, Brazil’s System of Incentives for Environmental Services, Conservation and Society 21 (4): 223-233.

• Hoelle, J., Gould, R.K., Tauro, A. (2023) Beyond “Desirable” Values: Expanding relational values research to reflect the diversity of human-nature relationships, People and Nature 5: 1774–1785.

• Hoelle, J. & N.C. Kawa. (2021) Placing the Anthropos in Anthropocene, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 111 (3): 655-662.  

• le Polain de Waroux, Y, Garrett, R.D., Chapman, M, Friis, C., Hoelle, J., Hodel, L., Hopping, K.A, Zaehringer, J.G. (2021) The Role of Culture in Land System Science,  Journal of Land Use Science 16 (4): 450–466.

• Wade, M. & J. Hoelle. (2020) A Review of Edible Insect Industrialization: Scales of Production and Implications for Sustainability, Environmental Research Letters, 15 (12).

• Hoelle, J. A Chegada da Cultura Caubói no Acre, Brasil, (2020) Caderno de Geografia, 30 (3): 461-483. 

• Schmink, M., Hoelle, J., Gomes, C.V.  & Thaler, G. (2019) From Contested to 'Green' Frontiers in the Amazon? A Long-term Analysis of São Felix do Xingu, Brazil, Journal of Peasant Studies, 44: 1-23.

• Hoelle, J. (2018) Quantifying Cultural Values Associated with Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, Journal of Land Use Science, 13 (1): 1-16. 

• Hoelle, J. (2017) Jungle Beef: Consumption, Production and Destruction, and the Development Process in the Brazilian Amazon, Journal of Political Ecology, 24: 743-762

Courses