Christopher S. Sneddon
Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies
My research and teaching interests come together around the question of how to reconcile human activities with the long-term resilience and vulnerability of ecological systems. Most of my work has focused on human uses of water and, in particular, on the transformation of river basins due to large-scale development. Much of this research has focused on settings in the tricontinental world during the twentieth century-e.g., the Mekong River Basin-but has applications to a variety of historical and geographical contexts. One of my primary interests is analysis of social conflicts over water, and a recent project (working with colleagues in Dartmouth's Geography Department) examines the social dimensions of river restoration involving dam removals in New England. At a theoretical level, I draw inspiration from ongoing discussions in political ecology, ecological theory, concepts of power, science and technology studies, and ideas regarding nature-society relations. I completed in 2015 book titled Concrete Revolution: Large Dams, Cold War Geopolitics, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation published by the University of Chicago Press. At Dartmouth, I teach courses on political ecology, nature-society relations, qualitative research methods, the geopolitics of development, the envrionmental politics of Southeast Asia, and environmental history.
Contact
Department(s)
Environmental Studies
Center(s)
The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding
Education
- B.S. University of Wisconsin
- M.S. University of Michigan
- Ph.D. University of Minnesota
Selected Publications
Sneddon, C., Magilligan, F. J., & Fox, C. A. 2021. Peopling the environmental state: River restoration and state power. Annals of the American Association of Geographers. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2021.1913089.
Fox, C. A., and Sneddon, C. S. 2019. Political Borders, Epistemological Boundaries, and Contested Knowledges: Constructing Dams and Narratives in the Mekong River Basin. Water, 11(3), 413. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11030413.
Sneddon, C., Magilligan, F. J., & Fox, C. A. 2017. Science of the Dammed: Expertise and Knowledge Claims in Contested Dam Removals. Water Alternatives, 10(3):677-696.
Fox, C., Magilligan, F., and C. Sneddon. 2016. "You kill the dam, you are killing a part of me": Dam removal and the environmental politics of river restoration. Geoforum 70:93-104.
Works In Progress
Sneddon, C. S., Magilligan, F. J., & Fox, C. A. 2022. Peopling the environmental state: River restoration and state power. Annals of the American Association of Geographers. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2021.1913089.
Selected Works & Activities
Irengbam, M. & Sneddon, C. 2025. The making of a hydrofrontier: geopolitics, securitization and 'green'energy imaginaries in India's eastern borderlands. Political Geography, 121, 103378
Sneddon, C., Fox, C., Magilligan, F. J., & Bramsen, A. Forthcoming. Flows of Justice?: Situating Environmental Justice in Urban River Restoration. Accepted PLOS Water, March 2026
Sneddon, C., & Fox, C. (2025). Water Politics. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography, 573-589.