Rate My Professor Richie Howitt

Howitt specializes in human geography, with research focusing on Indigenous rights and the interfaces between Indigenous communities, natural resource development, governments, and corporations across project, community, landscape, and national scales. He developed participatory social impact assessment methodologies, first outlined in a widely cited 1993 paper, to empower Indigenous peoples in negotiations and challenge marginalization of their systems. His theoretical contributions include a relational view of geographical scale influencing legal pluralism in planning. Key projects encompass native title negotiations in South Australia and an Australian Research Council Discovery project on social change in rural NSW Aboriginal communities from 1965 to 2015. Selected publications include "Enhancing meaningful Indigenous leadership and collaboration in international environmental governance forums" (2024, Environmental Science & Policy), "Reconnecting to the social: ontological foundations for a repurposed and rescaled SIA" (2024, Current Sociology), "Taiwan inside-out: rescaling colonial constructions of Taiwan through a Tayal-focused lens" (2024, Geographical Research), and "Challenging the colonial legacy of/at Macquarie" (2022, Geographical Research). Awards include the Distinguished Fellowship (2005), Macdonald Holmes Medal (2011), Vice-Chancellor's Award for Higher Degree Research Supervision (2013), Member of the Order of Australia for services to education and Indigenous affairs, and the Institute of Australian Geographers' Australia-International Medal. He serves on the editorial boards of Geographical Research (since 2014) and Journal of Geography in Higher Education (since 2005), and on the US Transportation Review Board's Committee on Environmental Justice in Transportation (since 2005). His work has advanced ethical practices in resource management and Indigenous governance.