Biography

Dr. Jonathan Eaton is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Civil Engineering, where he is serving as Executive Director of the UBC Disaster Resilience Research Network (drrn.ubc.ca) – a transdisciplinary group of researchers committed to inclusive and equitable disaster research. Dr. Eaton is a socio-cultural anthropologist with a focus on heritage, the anthropology of space and place, and the anthropology of disasters. His ethnographic research in Vancouver explores how building community and cultivating a sense of place can help people preserve what they value in the face of uncertain futures – highlighting strategies that communities can apply today to set the stage for future recovery. Jonathan holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia, an MA in Anthropology from the University of Toronto, and a BA in History from Valparaiso University.

Research Interests

Heritage; space and place; values; urban/disaster planning; disaster recovery; uncertainty; futures; natural hazards; human-nonhuman relations; Vancouver, Canada; Albania

Awards & Recognitions

• 2019 – Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship
• 2019 – UBC Public Scholars Initiative
• 2018-2020 – Various UBC PhD Fellowships and Awards
• 2014 – EU Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Award in the category of ‘Education, Training and Awareness-raising’ (as part of the team at Cultural Heritage without Borders-Albania)
• 2011 – American Councils Title VIII Southeast European Language and Research Fellowship
• 2009 – J. William Fulbright Award to Albania

Publications

• 2024. The state of disaster and resilience literature in British Columbia, Canada. A systematic scoping review. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2024.104848 (with C. Milne, T. Legere, S. Shneiderman, and C. Molina Hutt)
• 2023. As we fight the Alberta and B.C. wildfires, we must also plan for future disasters. The Conversation. Link to article (with S. Shneiderman)
• 2022. Heritage Languages and Language as Heritage: The Language of Heritage in Canada and Beyond. International Journal of Heritage Studies 28(7). https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2022.2077805 (with M. Turin)
• 2022. Austrian Economics on Mushrooms: A Mycelial Approach to Understanding Market Processes in Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning in Vancouver, Canada. In Market Process and Market Order: From Human Action, but Not of Human Design. Eds. Christopher Coyne, Rosolino Candela and Kristen Collins. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. UBC Library e-book link
• 2022. Acting Out the Future of the Albanian National Theatre: New Heritage at the Intersection of Resistance and New Media. In Theorizing Heritage through Non-Violent Resistance. Eds. Evren Uzer and Feras Hammami. London: Palgrave, 41-69. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77708-1_3 (with K. Rocker)
• 2021. Living with Earthquakes, Past and Future. Review of Shake Up and A Future for Memory, Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia. Visual Anthropology Review 37(2), 463-469. https://doi.org/10.1111/var.12252
• 2017. Rebuilding the Broken: Regional Restoration Camps as a Meeting Platform in the Western Balkans. In Heritage and Peacebuilding. Eds. Diana Walters, Daniel Laven & Peter Davis. Suffolk, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 205-219. (with L. Hadžić) Publisher e-book link
• 2014. Chiseling away at a concrete legacy: Engaging with Communist-era heritage and memory in Albania. Journal of Field Archaeology 39(3), 312-319. https://doi.org/10.1179/0093469014Z.00000000084 (with E. Roshi)