Virginia Nazarea
Virginia D. Nazarea, professor and director of the Ethnoecology/ Biodiversity Lab, has made unique contributions to The University of Georgia’s Department of Anthropology since 1994. She demonstrates her commitment to service-learning by developing classrooms without walls for students, communities, and the world.
Nazarea focuses on the preservation of knowledge and practices associated with traditional varieties of dietary and ritual crops that are disappearing due to modern agriculture. Through her “memory banking” approach, she systematically collects indigenous and heirloom seeds, their genetic material and their cultural associations, in order to enhance biodiversity.
In her curriculum, Nazarea creates opportunities to involve her undergraduate and graduate students in the documentation, recovery, and application of local knowledge for cultural resilience. She and her husband, Dr. Robert Rhoades, established the Southern Seed Legacy (SSL) in order to help communities preserve Southern crop heirlooms. Her work has supported the indigenous peoples of Cotacachi, Ecuador, in conserving their ancestors’ agricultural and culinary practices; helped to record the life histories of those who attended the log schoolhouse built by African-Americans in Taliaferro County, Georgia, during segregation; and organized Rabun County’s Foxfire archives of Appalachian culture.
Nazarea’s teaching philosophy, centered on mutually respectful knowledge exchanges, has had a multiplier effect on students. Inspired by her classes and seminars, students have gone on to found organizations similar to the Southern Seed Legacy in New England and in the Ozarks. Locally, Nazarea has influenced the development of FOLK (Furthering Our Local Knowledge), which facilitates the conservation and exchange of local knowledge among different groups and generations, and PLACE (Promoting Local Agricultural and Cultural Experience), which established the Athens Farmers Market in Bishop Park.
Best said by Professor and Department Head Ervan Garrison, “Dr. Nazarea’s professional approach is one of the finest examples of the continuous feedback between research-teaching-community involvement.”
For the last 14 years, she dedicated her passion and expertise to the needs of diverse peoples and to finding innovative ways to preserve their cultural and biological legacies. Nazarea is the winner of the Georgia Archivists President’s Award, national Praxis Award, and William Owens Creative Research Award. She brought almost $1 million to the university through her research, and she is frequently called upon nationally and internationally to be keynote speaker and program advisor. She has authored several books on the relationship between cultural memory and biodiversity and offers courses such as “Landscapes and Memories” and “Anthropology of Roots and Rooting” at UGA.