Anthony Bebbington
Anthony Bebbington (born 1962) is a geographer, International Director for Natural Resources and Climate Change at the Ford Foundation and Higgins Professor of Environment and Society in the Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, USA (on leave). He was previously ARC Laureate Professor at the School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Australia (2016-2019). Background. Tony Bebbington was born and raised in Staffordshire, England, studied geography and land economy at the University of Cambridge where he graduated with distinction, and completed a PhD at the Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, USA in 1990, supervised by Billie Lee  Turner II. He holds British and American citizenship. He held a postdoctoral appointment in Latin American Studies at Cambridge (1989-1992), before working at two London research organizations: the Overseas Development Institute (1992-4) and the International Institute for Environment and Development (1994-5). He moved to the USA again in 1995, working at the World Bank (1995-6, 1999–2000) and as Associate Professor of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder (1996-2003) before moving to the University of Manchester, UK as Professor. Contributions. Bebbington's early work was on farmer knowledge, livelihoods, and agrarian change in mountain communities of Peru  and Ecuador. He made distinctive contributions to human geography and to understanding of rural development in the Andes, combining detailed fieldwork with farming households with broader understanding of rural institutions and social movements. He has retained an interest in theory, scholarship, and practical development issues. This interest in rural organizations and social movements led to research on the performance and practice on non-governmental organizations in Latin America, expressed in several books on NGOs and their contributions to development. After working in social policy at the World Bank, he became interested in how the World Bank works with NGOs, and  particularly the use of 'social capital' in the World Bank's work. Recent studies have been of mining, development, and the state in Peru and Ecuador, and the nature of protest surrounding mining proposals, funded by an ESRC research professorship, ARC Laureate Fellowship, and other grants. He has worked most often in the Andes, elsewhere in South and Central America, and briefly in Indonesia and Nepal. Bebbington has also collaborated with United Nations Research Institute For Social Development on the flagship report Combating Poverty and Inequality (2010); a project for which he wrote a background thematic paper "Poverty Reduction and  Social Movements: A Framework with Cases". Additionally, he collaborated on the project "Financing Social Policy" (2006-2010). Publications. "Books"