Latest East Asia Studies Career Development Professor Chosen

Julie Klinger’s in-depth fieldwork in global geography examines rare earth prospecting and mining, with special emphasis on the development and geopolitics of resource frontiers in China, Brazil, and outer space, and their impact on local populations and environments. Photo by Cydney Scott

To understand the economic, environmental, and public policy ramifications of global trade in rare earth elements, the metals that make both smartphones and advanced weapons systems possible, Julie Klinger insists on getting her boots dirty.

That means Klinger, who joined the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies earlier this month as an assistant professor of international relations, spends much of her time in places like Inner Mongolia and the Amazon basin. Speaking Mandarin and Portuguese to policy makers, workers, and residents there, she researches the relationship among international trade, government policies, and the effects of hazardous mining operations on local communities and global geopolitics. That research informs a book she is writing about the global geography of rare earth mining and prospecting as it is playing out on three fronts—China, Brazil, and the moon.

This work has won Klinger this year’s East Asia Studies Career Development Professorship, awarded to College of Arts & Sciences, College of Communication, College of Fine Arts, Pardee School of Global Studies, and Questrom School of Business assistant professors whose research is specific to East Asia. The professorship is made possible through the support of a Taiwan-based BU alumnus who wishes to remain anonymous, and it provides a three-year, nonrenewable stipend to support scholarly work plus a portion of the recipient’s salary.

Announcing the award, Jean Morrison, University provost and chief academic officer, says that “Julie Klinger’s in-depth fieldwork in global geography examines rare earth prospecting and mining, with special emphasis on the development and geopolitics of resource frontiers in China, Brazil, and outer space, and their impact on local populations and environments.”

“We are trying to respond to a world that is much more interconnected, and people like Julie Klinger, who connect disciplines and connect regions, working in Brazil and China, are the types of people we are building the Pardee School around,” says Adil Najam, dean of the Pardee School and a professor of international relations and of earth and environment. “We are delighted that she has been selected for this honor.”

Klinger earned a doctorate in geography at the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s at Sarah Lawrence College. She holds a certificate in China Studies from the Johns Hopkins University–Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies.

Klinger plans to use the professorship to delve more deeply into local questions she is pursuing at research sites in China, as well as to further investigate the flows of informally sourced rare earths with other clandestine commodities (such as illegal drugs and conflict minerals) across the Pacific. In China, she is planning a longitudinal study of the relationship between environmental and epidemiological changes at her primary research site in Inner Mongolia. She says that while environmental and industrial policies in China have changed for the better, it remains to be seen if it translates into measurable well-being for local people.

“This is very important, not just for contributing substantively to ongoing policy conversations in China,” Klinger says, “but also for shaping conversations in prospective sites in the Americas, including Brazil and the United States, by drawing on China’s experiences.”

Fieldwork is central to conducting international environmental research, she says, something she conveys to her BU students. In her visits to China and Brazil, she’s found a series of connections: how global demand for rare earth metals in products like smartphones and defense systems affects public health and the environment, how public policy influences their supply and flow, and how seemingly disconnected political forces determine where they are extracted.

“It’s very important to talk to people in national government offices. But it’s also important to see how big ideas, formulated in beautiful offices, translate into practice on the ground,” says Klinger. “In the office, you will get a neat and clean picture of what the policy measures are and what is being done to implement them. It gets immensely more complicated as you proceed down the chain of command.”

Klinger talks to people in local offices and miners and their families, who have an enormous stake in mining operations’ economic benefits and in curtailing their health and environmental consequences. Visiting households and talking with local people, she says, “you might find a particular family that relies on local mining activity and also has a heartbreaking history of early deaths, birth defects, and chronic health problems.”

Such testimony speaks to the importance of enforcing environmental protection policies and supporting the development of cleaner practices wherever rare earths are mined, including in less remote areas, such as the United States. For example, reopening a rare earth mine in southern California has been difficult, Klinger says. The assumption was that operating such a mine in the United States would yield rare earths that cause fewer environmental and health problems, but without adequate policy support, it has been difficult for Western companies to beat “the China price” or invest in environmentally superior production practices.

Klinger says the East Asia Studies Career Development Professorship is a delightful surprise. “One of the excellent things about the Pardee School is that it is very welcoming to big ideas and complex projects,” she says.

The professorship is an investment in young faculty’s scholarship to help them and the University expand their knowledge, Najam says. “When you hire young faculty…you are really saying, ‘I’m investing in a person who is going to be with us for next 40 years.’ And we will do everything we can to make them blossom and to give them every opportunity to become the best scholars that they can be.”

Michael S. Goldberg can be reached at michaelscottgoldberg@gmail.com.