Cameron Butler is a PhD candidate and SSHRC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar in the Department of Social Anthropology. His dissertation research explores how Canadian agribusiness is responding to increasing public and governmental concerns regarding phosphorus. He studies how the greater scrutiny around the global depletion of phosphate reserves, human rights issues related to phosphate sourcing, and increasing eutrophication from phosphate-rich runoff create different pressures and regulations to which fertilizer producers, farmers, and regional planners must adapt. These measures include the deployment of technological interventions around optimizing crop productivity and wastewater nutrient capture recycling. Combining economic and environmental anthropology, this project thinks together theories of value and theories of metabolic rift to explore how economic and ecological systems are intertwined as global agribusiness reshapes planetary geologies.
Cameron holds a Masters in Environmental Studies degree from York University, as well as a Bachelors of Engineering in Bioresource Engineering from McGill University. His previous research has focused on issues of wetland conservation, gentrification, engineering design, and water resource management. He has published works in the Journal of Environmental Management, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, and the Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment.