Personal Summary

Margiana is a political ecologist who studies climate equity and agrarian change. Margiana’s research examines adaptive capacity in working landscapes; agricultural responses to environmental change; and water and land use policy and racial equity in a changing climate. Through civically engaged research, teaching, and mentoring, Margiana aims to help dismantle the drivers of inequities, especially in rural places. Margiana grew up on a dairy goat farm in Massachusetts and worked in several non-profits before graduate school, primarily with immigrant and refugee farmers. At UC Berkeley, Margiana developed a collaborative research program and prioritized student mentorship. At EVST, she looks forward to teaching courses on the political ecology of agrifood systems, climate equity and justice, rural livelihoods, and environmental policy.

RESEARCH PROGRAM

1. Social-ecological systems and climate change. I am particularly interested in the kinds of management practices implemented on “working landscapes” and their impact on ecosystem functioning and biodiversity conservation. Example of published work here. Additionally, I was an editor for a special issue on farming systems and adaptive capacity in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, which can be found here.
2. Rural livelihoods and crises. Here I examine how rural agricultural communities in the US respond and adapt to the impacts of climate change - from water scarcity and unpredictable weather to changing demographics, policies, markets, and migrations. This is the focus of my dissertation - an early draft was awarded the 2021 Lawrence Busch Graduate Student Paper Award from the Rural Sociology Society. Articles that draw on this richly textured data, including over 130 in-depth interviews, include publications in the journals Global Environmental Change and Climatic Change.
3. Public institutions and (in)equity. I ask questions about the role of public institutions like County government or Cooperative Extension in defining and defending what is considered acceptable agriculture, who has power and control in those institutions - especially at the local level, and how that shapes access and equity as rural places transformation. Example of published work here and here.

Education

EDUCATION

Postdoc UC Berkeley Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy and Management and Visiting Postdoc Fellow at Harvard University’s History of Science Dept., 2023
PhD Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Dec. 2022
MS Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California Berkeley, 2019
BA Geology and Biology, Brown University, 2011

Publications

RECENT PUBLISHED WORK

Social risk perceptions of climate change: A case study of farmers and agricultural advisors in northern California. 2022. Journal of Global Environmental Change, Vol. 75. 102557. (Petersen-Rockney, M.)

Criminalized crops: Environmentally justified illicit crop interventions and the cyclical marginalization of smallholders. 2022. Political Geography, Vol. 99. 102781. (Petersen-Rockney, M., Lu, J., Dev, L., all co-lead authors)

Farmers adapt to climate change irrespective of stated beliefs in climate change: a California case study. 2022. Climatic Change, 173:23. (Petersen-Rockney, M.)

Rancher experiences and perceptions of climate change in the Western United States.  2022. Rangeland Ecology and Management, 84: 75-85. (Saliman, A. (undergraduate research assistant) and Petersen-Rockney, M. (Co-lead authors))

Narrow and Brittle or Broad and Nimble? Comparing Adaptive Capacity in Simplifying and Diversifying Farming Systems. 2021.  Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 5:564900. (Authors: Petersen-Rockney M, Baur P, Guzman A, Bender SF, Calo A, Castillo F, De Master K, Dumont A, Esquivel K, Kremen C, LaChance J, Mooshammer M, Ory J, Price MJ, Socolar Y, Stanley P, Iles A and Bowles T). Press release here and featured in the Daily Cal here.

Editorial: Diversified farming systems for adaptive capacity. 2021. (Authors: Petersen-Rockney, M.; Ahmed, S.; Bowles, T.; Baur, P.) Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. 5:806604

Porcine Providence: pigs, differentiation, and cultural strategies of exclusion through agrarian transformations in the making of a US city. 2021. Journal of Agricultural History, Vol 95: 5. (Petersen-Rockney, M.)

Cannabis farmers or criminals? Enforcement-first approaches fuel disparity and hinder regulation. 2019. California Agriculture. Vol. 73, no. 3.  (co-first author with Micheal Polson)

Farming Water. 2019. Grist Magazine feature article. (Petersen-Rockney, M.)

Last chance in this Farm Bill for beginning farmers and our farmland. 2018. Op-ed National Young Farmers Coalition. (Petersen-Rockney, M.)

What Beginning Farmers Need Most in the Next Farm Bill: Land. 2018. Policy Brief. Berkeley Food Institute. (Petersen-Rockney, M. and Calo, A.)

This Farm Bill deregulates the rich and polices the poor. 2018. High Country News. (Petersen-Rockney, M.)