{{Short description|American ecological anthropologist}} {{Infobox scientist |name = Ronald Nigh |image = |caption = |birth_date = 29 October 1947 |birth_place = Kearney, Nebraska |death_date = {{death date|2024|09|26}} |death_place = Mexico City, Mexico |field = anthropologist<br>scholar<br>ethnologist |alma_mater = Stanford University |known_for = Work on ecological anthropology }}
'''Ronald Nigh''' (1947-2024) was an American ecological anthropologist focusing on Caribbean areas and the Maya region in Mesoamerica. Nigh was a professor and researcher at Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Anthropologia Social (CIESAS) for over twenty years, where he conducted research on ecological anthropology and indigenous farming methods.
==Life== Ronald Nigh was born October 29, 1947, in Kearney, Nebraska.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Nigh|first1=Ronald|title=Curriculum Vitae|url=http://antroglob.org/CVen/|website=CIECAS|accessdate=15 October 2015}}</ref> Nigh attended Stanford University, where he received his BA in Anthropology in 1969. He married Katharine Powers Crocker and the couple moved to Chiapas, Mexico. Nigh continued his education at Stanford and received a MA in Anthropology in 1970 and a Ph.D in Social Anthropology in 1976. His dissertation concentrated on traditional Maya milpa agriculture in the highlands of Chiapas.<ref name="Latin America Learning">{{cite web|title=Nutrition, Inequality, and Agriculture: Contested Models of Degenerative Disease in Chiapas, Mexico|url=http://www.latinamericalearning.org/04-22-10_nigh|website=Latin America Learning|access-date=15 October 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150920013954/http://www.latinamericalearning.org/04-22-10_nigh|archive-date=20 September 2015}}</ref> He then spent one year at a public research institute continuing his work on traditional Maya agriculture and its relationship to biodiversity and forest regeneration.
==Work== From 1985 to 1988, Nigh worked for several environmental NGOs,<ref name="Latin America Learning"/> including The Nature Conservancy and Greenpeace, developing programs in Mexico, where he has spent most of his professional career. Nigh was a part of the team who founded DANA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable agriculture in Mexico and Central America. Nigh briefly taught at the National Autonomous University of Mexico from 2000 to 2002, before becoming a professor at CIESAS, where he conducted anthropological research from 1994 to his death in 2024.
Nigh's experience with ecological anthropology allowed him to collaborate with many scholars on research throughout Mesoamerica. His work focused on promoting biodiversity conservation in the midst of rapid human population growth. Most recently, he collaborated with Dr. Anabel Ford on their book The Maya Forest Garden: Eight Millennia of Sustainable Cultivation of the Tropical Woodlands. Nigh and Ford argue that Maya practices serve as solutions to contemporary problems, such as sustainability, climate change, and natural resource scarcity. Nigh developed a garden-based science-teaching program in farmer communities in Chiapas, and helped launch a doctoral program in sustainable agriculture.<ref name="Latin America Learning"/><ref>{{cite web|title=Ronald Nigh: Sembrador de saberes agroecológicos y defensor de la milpa|trans-title=Ronald Nigh: Sower of agroecological knowledge and defender of the milpa|url=https://ichan.ciesas.edu.mx/ronald-nigh-sembrador-de-saberes-agroecologicos-y-defensor-de-la-milpa/|access-date=17 May 2026}}</ref>
==Notable publications== *{{cite journal|last1=Nigh|first1=Ronald|last2=Chazdon|first2=Robin L.|author-link2=Robin Chazdon|last3=Harvey|first3=Celia A.|last4=Komar|first4=Oliver|last5=Griffith|first5=Daniel M.|last6=Ferguson|first6=Bruce G.|last7=Martinez-Ramos|first7=Miguel|last8=Morales|first8=Helda|last9=Soto-Pinto|first9=Lorena|last10=Van Breugel|first10=Michiel|last11=Philpott|first11=Stacy M.|author-link11=Stacy Philpott|title=Beyond Reserves: A research agenda for conserving biodiversity in human-modified tropical landscapes|journal=Biotropica|date=1 March 2009|volume=41|issue=2|pages=142–153|doi=10.1111/j.1744-7429.2008.00471.x}} *{{cite journal|last1=Harvey|first1=Celia A.|last2=Komar|first2=Oliver|last3=Chazdon|first3=Robin|last4=Ferguson|first4=Bruce G.|last5=Finegan|first5=Bryan|last6=Griffith|first6=Daniel M.|last7=Martinez-Ramos|first7=Miguel|last8=Morales|first8=Helda|last9=Nigh|first9=Ronald|last10=Soto-Pinto|first10=Lorena|last11=Van Breugel|first11=Michiel|last12=Wishnie|first12=Mark|title=Integrating agricultural landscapes with biodiversity conservation in the Mesoamerican hotspot|journal=Conservation Biology|date=1 February 2008|volume=22|issue=1|pages=8–15|doi=10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00863.x|pmid=18254848|doi-access=free}} *{{cite journal|last1=Nations|first1=James D.|last2=Nigh|first2=Ronald|title=The evolutionary potential Lacandon Maya sustained-yield tropical forest agriculture|journal=Journal of Anthropological Research|date=1 March 1980|volume=36|issue=1|pages=1–30|jstor=3629550}} *{{cite book|last1=Ford|first1=Anabel|last2=Nigh|first2=Ronald|title=The Maya Forest Garden: Eight Millennia of Sustainable Cultivation of the Tropical Woodlands|date=June 2015|publisher=Left Coast Press|location=Walnut Creek, California|isbn=978-1-61132-998-8|url=http://www.lcoastpress.com/book.php?id=546|accessdate=15 October 2015}} *{{cite journal|last1=Gonzalez Cabanez|first1=Alma Amalia|last2=Nigh|first2=Ronald|title=Reflexive Consumer Markets as Opportunities for New Peasant Farmers in Mexico and France: Constructing Food Sovereignty through Alternative Food Networks|journal=Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems|date=10 October 2014|volume=39|issue=3|pages=317–341|doi=10.1080/21683565.2014.973545}} *{{cite journal|last1=Diemont|first1=Stewart AW|last2=Nigh|first2=Ronald|title=The Maya Milpa: fire and the legacy of living soil|journal=Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment|date=August 2013|volume=11|issue=1|pages=45–54|doi=10.1890/120344|doi-access=}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{GoogleScholar|Rs3YpqoAAAAJ}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nigh, Ronald}} Category:1947 births Category:2024 deaths Category:Stanford University alumni Category:American Mesoamericanists Category:Mesoamerican anthropologists Category:Mayanists Category:20th-century Mesoamericanists Category:People from Kearney, Nebraska Category:Academic staff of the National Autonomous University of Mexico