RESEARCH SEMINAR: Jana Kopelent-Rehak
Speaker: Dr. Jana Kopelent-Rahek
Title: We Live in The Water: Climate, Aging and Socioecology on Smith Island
Abstract: This presentation is part of my research about aging in place in light of global Climate Change. My research examines changing socioecologies in the Chesapeake Bay on Smith Island, Maryland. Like other coastal communities, Smith Island’s socioecology has been affected by flooding and land erosion. I discuss how people belong to seascape. To understand how Smith Islanders inhabit the changing dynamics of their weather world, I draw from my anthropological research and ethnographic material collected between 2015 and 2022. I take a life-course approach to show how people on Smith Island grow older and how local knowledge is integrated into ecological systems. I explore the experiences of the people of Smith Island as they adapt to changes in their environment, focusing on how they reinvent their lives in the face of socioecological change, particularly as they age. My research delves into the islanders' ecological, cosmological, and sensory knowledge, inviting readers to understand the human dimensions of the island's climate and ecology. Smith Islanders’ socioecological realities raise questions about political agency, sustained by poetics embodied in people’s sense of self and place. The idea of being forced to relocate from one’s inherited island community is abhorrent in any context. My work aims to provide readers with a deeper understanding of Smith Island's residents and their experiences as they age in their unique environment, impacted by global climate change.
Bio: Dr. Jana Kopelent-Rehak, cultural anthropologist, artist, and filmmaker, is currently a Teaching Faculty in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at Johns Hopkins University. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology in 2006 from American University, Washington DC. Her research embraces a range of topics such as social ecology and climate, urban social inequality, aging and health, political violence, and social suffering. In the Czech Republic, she worked with ecological refugees from Chernobyl. She is the author of the book Recovering Face: Czech Political Prisoners, addressing issues of social suffering, violence, national identity, communication, reconciliation, and memory in the context of post-socialist Central Eastern Europe. Her urban anthropology work is based on engagement with communities in Baltimore, addressing the urban environment, public art, housing, and health. Her most recent ethnographic research on Smith Island in Maryland addresses climate and changing socioecology in island environment. Her most recent book We Live in the Water: Climate, Aging and Socioecology on Smith Island, was published by JHU University Press in February 2024. In addition to publications and essays, she made an ethnographic film in collaboration with the island community Family Frames: Smith Island Family Albums, in collaboration with islanders, is available to view here: http://somelibrary.org/familyframes.php.