Professor Andrew F Walsh, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social Science, Western University, is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research focuses on Artisanal Mining Communities, Conservation and Ecotourism, and Commodity Production and Consumption in Madagascar. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork and collaborative teaching in northern Madagascar, Walsh studies ritual, history, identity, sapphire mining, ecotourism, and the spread of small-scale humanitarian, conservation, and development projects. Walsh’s research mission is to show how global commodity, tourism, and aid systems are lived and negotiated in local worlds. Walsh also supervises ethnographic projects on non-governmental organizations, artisanal mining, tourism, and ecotourism at Western University.

Beginning in 2026, Walsh will be working with a team of Malagasy and international collaborators on a new project focusing on "awareness raising" (sensibilisation in French) related to climate change and HIV/AIDS in northern Madagascar. 

For more information on an ongoing collaboration involving colleagues and students at Western and l’Université d’Antsiranana (in Madagascar), see: https://www.facebook.com/MadagascarFieldCourse/notifications/