Keith is an environmental anthropologist and naturalist focused on better understanding how to amplify recruitment of citizen conservationists and the development of a 21st century land ethic. His work features efforts to locate and explore portals and pathways into conservation behaviors. Grounded in cultural anthropology, disturbance ecology and environmental psychology, he approaches this challenge via his integrated research and extension work exploring the dynamics of natural resource management in the contexts of trauma, disturbance, disasters and war. Experiences in the military and in the field of international disaster response and relief inform his unique brand of applied scholarship, including stints throughout Asia, Africa and the Americas. Tidball's doctoral work focused on the role of community based natural resource management in Post-Katrina resilience of New Orleans, and he continues to work in post-disaster contexts globally, as well as in disaster readiness, resilience, and response. He also studies how outdoor recreation contributes to and enhances resilience and recovery for those that have experienced trauma, especially combat-wounded veterans, first responders, and disaster survivors.
Dr. Tidball has focused on two additional domains, areas that he believes yield particularly rich and important insights into what might constitute portals or entry-points for citizens of the 21st century into developing a land ethic and engaging in civic ecology practices. The first domain encompasses theoretical and applied research akin to fields such as environmental philosophy and environmental psychology. Keith interrogates the human-nature dichotomy prevalent in western thought, motivations and mechanisms at work among individuals and social groups in peopled landscapes that engage in conservation activities, and how memories, meanings, and symbols influence the development and expression of conservation behaviors and a land ethic.
The second domain explores fundamental questions about human nature and human development from the standpoint of the most basic activities of all omnivores, acquiring protein. This domain is concerned with how people of the 21st century may be developing a new “portal” into the land ethic and conservation behaviors via extending local and organic food motivations to hunting, fishing and the preparation and consumption of wild-caught fish and game. This “coming full circle” is a key object of study and outreach focus in Tidball’s work in the Department of Natural Resources and Environment at Cornell University.
