McGuinn Hall 412
Telephone: 617-552-8148
Email: brian.gareau@bc.edu
ORCID
UNCP4602 “There and Back Again”: A Critical Reflection on Hobbits, Wizards, Middle Earth, and a Purposeful Life after Boston College
SOCY1501/EESC 1501 - Global Implications of Climate Change
SOCY3349 - Environmental Studies: Select Topics
INTL4941 - International Studies Senior Seminar
ENVS4943 – Environmental Seminar
SOCY5562 - Environmental Sociology I
SOCY5570 - Political Sociology
SOCY5572 - Sociology of Science Studies
Environmental Sociology, Science, Knowledge and Technology, Globalization, Rural Sociology/Agrofood Studies, Global Environmental Governance
As Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Academic Planning, Professor Gareau assists the Dean of the Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences (MCAS) with oversight of MCAS departments in the Humanities and Social Sciences. His role includes assisting the Dean as a point-of-contact for department chairs on personnel issues, in reviewing faculty search requests, faculty hiring, faculty evaluation and merit review, in developing new faculty programming, working with departments on strategic planning, and helping supervise Interdisciplinary Programs, among other responsibilities. Professor Gareau was Associate Dean for the University Core Curriculum from 2018-2023. As an environmental sociologist, Gareau studies global environmental governance, especially the governance of ozone layer depletion and global climate change, and publishes on theorizations of society/nature relations, alternative development, and agri-food systems. Currently, he leads a multi-disciplinary research lab investigating the social and ecological dynamics of cranberry production in New England and global climate change.
Pisani Gareau, Tara L., Lijing Gao, and Brian J. Gareau (2024) The enduring nature of cranberry production in a changing climate: The interplay of extreme weather, knowledge networks, and adaptation, PLOS Climate, 3(5): e0000350, .
Gareau, Brian J. Xiaorui Huang, Tara Pisani Gareau, and Sandra DiDonato (2022) Silent Spring at 60: Assessing environmentalism in the cranberry treadmill of production in Massachusetts, Journal of Rural Studies, 95: 505-520, .
Patrick CoatarPeter & Brian J. Gareau (2022) Combining world-system and world polity approaches to analyze international environmental governance: a case study of forest governance in Chile, Environmental Sociology, DOI:
DiDonato S, Gareau BJ (2022) Be(e)coming pollinators: Beekeeping and perceptions of environmentalism in Massachusetts. PLoS ONE 17(3): e0263281.
Gareau, B.J., Huang, X., Pisani Gareau, T., DiDonato, S. The strength of green ties: Massachusetts cranberry grower social networks and effects on climate change attitudes and action. Climatic Change (2020).
Gareau, Brian. J., Xiaorui Huang, and Tara Pisani Gareau. 2018. "Social and ecological conditions of cranberry production and climate change attitudes in New England." PLoS ONE, 13(12):e0207237. DOI:.
Gareau, Brian J., and Cristina A. Lucier. 2018. “Neoliberal Restructuring of the World Polity: The Weakening of the Montreal Protocol and Basel Convention in Historical Perspective.” Environmental Sociology 4(3): 325-342; .
Olson, Katherine A., and Brian J. Gareau. 2018. "Hydro/Power? Politics, Discourse and Controversy in Laos’s Hydroelectric Development." Sociology of Development 14(1): 94-118.
Al-Awad, Tareq K., Motasem N. Saidan, and Brian J. Gareau. 2018. “Halon Management and Ozone‑Depleting Substances Control in Jordan. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law, and Economics. .
Damian, White, Alan Rudy and Brian J. Gareau. 2016. Environments, Natures, and Social Theory. "Themes in Social Theory" Series, R. Stones (Series Editor) New York: Palgrave/Macmillan.
Gareau, Brian J. with Penelope Canan, Stephen O. Andersen, and Nancy Reichman (Special Issue eds.) 2015. "Introduction to the Special Issue on Ozone Layer Protection and Climate Change." Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 5(2): 111-121.
Lucier, Cristina and Brian J. Gareau. 2015. "From Waste to Resources? Interrogating 'Race to the Bottom' in the Global Environmental Governance of the Hazardous Waste Trade." Journal of World-Systems Research 21(2): 495-520.
Lucier, Cristina and Brian J. Gareau. 2014. "Obstacles to Precaution and Equity in Global Environmental Governance: Applications to the Basel Convention." International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law, and Economics. DOI 10.1007/s10784-014-9261-6.
Gareau, Brian J. 2013. . Yale Agrarian Studies Series (James C. Scott, series editor). New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Reviewed in: Social Forces 2013 (doi: 10.1093/sf/sot064); Journal of World-Systems Research 2013, 19(2): 312-314; CHOICE 2013, 51(2): 1134; Journal of Political Ecology 2014, Vol. 21; Global Environmental Politics 2014, 14(4): 147-150; Rural Sociology 2015, 80(1): 137-140; American Journal of Sociology 2014, 120(2): 607-609.
Gareau, Brian J. 2012 "." Environmental Politics. 21(1): 88-107.
1st Place Winner of the 2008 Global Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) Paper Competition.
Gareau, Brian J. 2012. "Theorizing Environmental Governance of the World System: Global Political Economy Theory and Some Applications to Stratospheric Ozone Politics." . 12(2): 187-210.
Boston College Office of the Vice Provost for Research, 2022 Recipient of a Research Across Departments and Schools (RADS) Grant for “Assessing Social and Environmental Pressures and Influences on the Cranberry Treadmill of Production in Massachusetts,” Tara Pisani Gareau and Brian J. Gareau (Co-PIs)
From Precaution to Profit was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2013 in the International Relations Category.
Boston College Institute for the Liberal Arts, 2015 Major Grant for "Organizing a Week-Long, Interdisciplinary Series of Events around Pope Francis’s much-anticipated Forthcoming Encyclical on the Environment." Co-PI: Noah Snyder.
Boston College Office of the Vice Provost for Research, 2014 Ignite recipient for “Massachusetts Cranberries: Sustaining a Native Production System amidst a Changing Climate.” Co-PI: Tara Pisani Gareau.