

McGuinn Hall 412
Telephone: 617-552-8148
Email: brian.gareau@bc.edu
ORCID 0000-0002-0529-3389
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
Professor Gareau was named Associate Dean for the Core in 2018. He is responsible for overseeing the University Core Curriculum, which consists of fifteen core requirements that all undergraduate students at Boston College fulfill. As Associate Dean, Gareau chairs the University Core Renewal Committee and works with faculty and academic departments on their engagement with the Core Curriculum. One major initiative is the management of Complex Problems and Enduring Questions course offerings, courses that satisfy two different Core requirements though interdisciplinary team teaching rooted in the Jesuit tradition. Complex Problems and Enduring Questions courses are taken by over 1,000 first year students every year. Gareau's scholarship focuses on the sociology of global environmental governance, especially the governance of ozone layer depletion and global climate change. He also publishes on theorizations of society/nature relations, alternative development, and agri-food systems. Gareau's latest book, Organic Futures (Yale University Press), co-authored with former BC undergraduate Connor J. Fitzmaurice, was translated into Japanese in 2018. Gareau's latest project involves conducting research on the links between cranberry production in Massachusetts and global climate change.
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, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.10.001.
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: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2115660
DiDonato S, Gareau BJ (2022) Be(e)coming pollinators: Beekeeping and perceptions of environmentalism in Massachusetts. PLoS ONE 17(3): e0263281. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263281
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). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02808-0
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: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207237.
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; https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2018.1436893.
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. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-018-9393-1.
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. From Precaution to Profit: Contemporary Challenges to Environmental Protection in the Montreal Protocol. 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 "The Limited Influence of Global Civil Society in the Montreal Protocol." 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." Journal of World-Systems Research. 12(2): 187-210.
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.