Christine Folch

I speak, study, and write about culture + politics. My larger research agenda is on environment, nature, and society.

These days, I'm working on:

• energy infrastructure, renewable energy, and energy integration in South America (hydropower) and especially Paraguay
• yerba mate & its Ilex cousins yaupon and guayusa that produce lovely stimulant beverages across the Americas & in your neighborhood cafe
• how to balance sustainable development + care for the environment in South America.

My first book Hydropolitics: The Itaipu Dam, Sovereignty, and the Engineering of Modern South America (Princeton University Press, 2019) is an in-depth look at the people and institutions connected with the Itaipu Dam, the world’s biggest producer of renewable energy. In it, I argue that the dam converts water into electricity and money to produce hydropolitics through its physical infrastructure, the financial liquidity of energy monies, and the international legal agreements managing transboundary water resources between Brazil and Paraguay, and their neighbors Argentina, Bolivia, and Uruguay.

My new book The Book of Yerba Mate: A Stimulating History (Princeton University Press, 2024) follows the untold story of South America's most interesting beverage. By tracing yerba mate production and consumption as they change over time and place, from precolonial Indigenous beginnings to the present, the book unravels the processes of commodification and their countervailing forces to show how accidents of botany intersect with political economic systems and personal taste.

A Spanish-language translation, El libro de la yerba mate: una historia estimulante (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2025) is now available.

I'm the Bacca Foundation Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology with a secondary appointment at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. I also serve as the Peter Lange Director of DukeEngage.

Office hours are open to all students, not just those in my classes. Sign up here: http://christinefolch.com/office-hours/