Prof Charles Mather

Research Fellow
Name: Charles Mather
Location: D Lab Auckland Park Kingsway Campus
  Staff Members

Contact Details:
Tel: +27 (0) 11 559 4555

Email: cmather@mun.ca

About Prof Charles Mather

My research examines the impact of globalisation and market liberalisation on food production. My earlier work focused on these processes in South and Southern Africa. I have worked on fruit and vegetables (especially citrus), wine and dairy production. Much of this research was informed by the global value chain framework. More recently I have worked on northern shrimp in Atlantic Canada, a project that is supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities (SSHRC) Insight Grant. This research examines questions of resource allocation, community sustainability, and shrimp quality in export markets.

My most recent research interest is on Atlantic salmon in Newfoundland and Labrador. I have been working with Jennifer Daniels, an MA student who completed her degree in 2015. We have a paper forthcoming in the British Journal of the History of Science called ‘Conserving Atlantic salmon ‘after nature’ on Newfoundland’s Gander River’. We have a second paper under review called ‘Conservation and care: material politics and Atlantic salmon on Newfoundland’s Gander River’. Our work is informed by thinking in science, technology and society (STS) and it provides critical insights on the history and contemporary politics of salmon conservation.

Education

My first degree was from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg where I majored in Geography and Industrial Sociology. I subsequently received an MA from the University of British Columbia, and a PhD from Queen’s in Kingston.

Selected Publications

Daniels, J. and Mather, C., 2017. Conserving Atlantic salmon ‘after nature’ on Newfoundland’s Gander River, British Journal for the History of Science. (online)

Foley, P. and Mather, C. 2016. Making Space for Community Use Rights: Insights From “Community Economies” in Newfoundland and Labrador, Society & Natural Resources, This paper is open access.

Foley, P., Mather, C. and Neis, B., 2015: Governing enclosure for coastal communities: Social embeddedness in a Canadian shrimp fishery, Marine Policy, in press. This paper is open access and can be downloaded here.

New: Badenhorst, C. and Mather, C., 2014. Blogging geographies, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, DOI:10.1080/03098265.2014.908276. This paper has been selected as an ‘editor’s choice’ publication and so is freely available here until the middle of 2016.

Mather, C., 2014. Avian influenza multiple: Enacting realities and dealing with policies in South Africa’s farmed ostrich sector. Journal of Rural Studies, 33, 99-106.

Mather, C., 2013. From cod to shellfish and back again? The new resource geography and Newfoundland’s fish economy, Applied Geography, 45, 402-409.

Mather, C., 2012. ‘Biosecurity and globalising economic spaces’, Urbani izziv, 23(2), 195-203.

Mather, C., 2011: Assembling geographies of crisis, Dialogues in Human Geography, 1, 342-345.

Mather, C. and Marshall, A., 2011: Biosecurity’s unruly spaces, Geographical Journal, 4, 300-310.

Lepawsky, J. and Mather, C., 2011: From beginnings and endings to boundaries and edges: rethinking the circulation and exchange of electronic waste, Area, 43(3), 242-249.

Hammett, D. and Mather, C., 2011: Beyond decoding: political cartoons in the classroom, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 35(1), 103-119.

Mather, C and Marshall, A 2011: Living with disease? Biosecurity and avian influenza in ostriches, Agriculture and Human Values, 28(2), 153-165.

Ian Cook…Charles Mather et al 2011: Geographies of food: ‘Afters’
Progress in Human Geography, 35(1), 104-120.

Mather, C. 2007. Between the global and local: South African geography after apartheid, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 31(1), 143-160

Mather, C. and Mackenzie, C. 2006. The body in transnational commodity cultures, Journal of Social and Cultural Geography, 7(3), 403-421

Mather, C. and Greenberg, S. 2003. Market liberalization in post-apartheid South Africa: the deregulation of citrus exports, Journal of Southern African Studies, 29(2), 393-412

Mather, C. 2002. Maps, measurements and landmines: deploying development and the global landmines crisis, Environment and Planning A, 34(2), 239-250