This roundtable discussion explores the recently published Reading List for a Progressive Environmental Anthropology. The crowdsourced reading list is a project organized by Bridget Guarasci (Franklin and Marshall College), Amelia Moore (University of Rhode Island), and Sarah Vaughn (University of California, Berkeley). Crafting this reading list around themes such as toxicity, globalization, waterscapes, and economies, Guarasci, Moore, and Vaughn aim to offer theoretical and regional breadth that pushes at the intellectual and practical boundaries of environmental anthropology.

In this roundtable discussion held at the 2018 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Guarasci and Moore are joined by collaborators Jessica Cattelino (University of California, Los Angeles), Eleana Kim (University of California, Irvine), and Laura Ogden (Dartmouth College) for a conversation on how the reading list came about, the motivations behind it, and possible applications and future directions. As well as offering insightful commentary on environmental anthropological theory over the years, the discussion highlights the political implications of who we choose to read now and what concepts and discourses we engage in our conversations about the environment—in other words, why citation matters.