Francis Commercon

Francis is a graduate student in the Society and Environment Division of ESPM. Focusing on biodiversity conservation in tropical southwest China, his research asks how conservation scientists and rural communities define ecological expertise and how understanding such definitions can illuminate the politics of sustainability. His inquiry traces three dominant arenas of conservation practice in which scientists are interested in promoting villagers’ sustainability but in which they differently theorize the links between Indigenous knowledge and sustainable outcomes. First, extension of sustainable rubber agroforestry practices encourages farmer adoption of ‘modern’ innovations developed in controlled research settings. Second, promotion of community-based ecotourism encourages villagers to selectively ‘modernize’ Indigenous knowledge for maximum profitability in tourist markets. Third, ethnobotanical research and associated educational campaigns aim to conserve sustainable life-ways, food-regimes, and medicinal practices rooted in supposedly pure ‘traditional’ Indigenous knowledge. In each relationship, assumptions about the nature of expertise and its connection with sustainability appear to be central to projects that attempt (and sometimes succeed) to transform villagers’ livelihoods. Between 2027 and 2028, he will conduct a year-long ethnography of these dynamics to disentangle the politics of knowledge underlying major themes in mainstream conservation discourse, with important implications for equitable and socially responsible biodiversity conservation.

Admittance Semester/Year and Program

Fall 2024, PhD in Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Education

Spring 2018, BS, Biological Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO

Spring 2018, BS, Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO

Spring 2023, MESc, Environmental Science, Yale School of the Environment, New Haven, CT

Research Lab

Chung Lab

Selected Publications

• 2024 Goldberg, M. H., Remshard, M., Commerçon, F. A., Ozaksut, J., Lee, S., Rosenthal, S. A., & Leiserowitz, A. Predicting the Performance of Facebook Advertisements About Climate Change Using Self-report Data. Environmental Communication, 1-15.https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2024.2441936

• 2023 Commerçon, F. A., Goldberg, M. H., Lacroix, K., Carman, J. P., Rosenthal, S. A., Leiserowitz, A. Evaluating the terms Americans use to refer to “carbon emissions”. Environmental Communicationhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2022.2156907

• 2021 Commerçon, F. A., Zhang, M., & Solomon, J. N.. Social Norms Shape Wild Bird Hunting: A Case Study from Southwest China. Global Ecology and Conservation,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01882

Selected Presentations

• 2025 (Nov) Commerçon, F.A. Social Network Analysis of Wild Meat Eating in a Rural Community in Xishuangbanna, China. Third Annual Southeast Asian Biodiversity Workshop. Menglun, China.

• 2023 (Mar) Commerçon, F. A. Shorebird perspectivism: Integrating non-human agency into conservation planning. Society for Applied Anthropology conference. Cincinnati, OH. (Presented remotely).

• 2023 (Mar) Commerçon, F. A. Analysis of Wetland Prioritization for EAAF Migratory Waterbird Conservation. The Asian Flyways Collaborative for Waterbirds (AFCoW). Online.

• 2022 (Nov) Commerçon, F. A. Migratory Shorebirds: Unsettling Local-Global Asymmetries in the Power of Knowledge. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. Seattle, WA

Selected Honors and Awards

• 2023 Yale Fox International Fellowship - $27,800

• 2018 US Fulbright Research Grant - $22,800

• 2017 Truman Scholarship - $30,000

• 2014 Boettcher Scholarship - Full cost of college in Colorado, USA