College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

• Exploring the world

  Robert Mazur's strong interest in international issues has expanded from Africa to Southeast Asia.

• 
  A lack of money couldn't keep Robert Mazur from continuing his exploration of the world.
  
  While in college in the mid '70s, Mazur took a semester off from his studies and toured a dozen countries in Westen Europe. He was planning to continue his journey, but…
  
  "I ran out of money," the associate professor of sociology said, "or I would have gone on to Africa."
  
  Instead Mazur saved those trips to Africa for later in life.
  
  Academically, Mazur's interest in international issues began during his master's thesis research on agrarian reform and migration in Mexico and his Ph.D. research on rural development and migration in Mali.
  
  But it was as a Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe in the mid '80s when Mazur brought his training as a sociologist and population specialist together. He established the basis for the University of Zimbabwe's present population studies program.
  
  "As a population specialist, there is a whole range of development issues that interest me," he said. "There is a huge demand for analysis linking these phenomena."
  
  His current research projects in Southern Africa and Southeast Asia involve analysis of complex migration patterns which form part of the broader household livelihood strategies that interact with rapidly changing socioeconomic development conditions and policies.
  
  "The bottom line outcomes of interest are food security and health, the fundamental indicators of development," Mazur said. "These are also the prerequisities for a successful demographic transition to low morbidity, morality and fertility rates, and thus sustainable population growth."
  
  Mazur's research on these issues is conducted not only in ‘normal’ situations of poor countries struggling with the impacts of the latest wave of globalization.
  
  "A particular challenge and potential is contained in learning how to support self reliance initiatives among displaced and resettled persons in the aftermath of
  conflict," he said.
  
  The demand for Mazur's services is evident. He has developed an international reputation as an expert on population and social development issues. He has served as a visiting professor at four universities in Africa and two in Asia.
  
  His research on population issues in Zimbabwe was supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The United Nations has used him as a consultant on refugee issues in both Swaziland and Tanzania in the early '90s.
  
  During a two-year leave from Iowa State in the mid '90s, Mazur was involved in policy-oriented research with colleagues in South Africa on such diverse issues as health and population, urbanization, housing policy reform, and land reform.
  
  And for the last five years, Mazur has served as a social development consultant for the British government on post-war rehabilitation in Mozambique.
  
  "That project grew much more than we originally anticipated," he said. "It incorporated issues of poverty reduction, gender, environmental impacts, transportation and marketing networks, local theater groups' role in health education, and community mobilization for land tenure secruity.
  
  "In fact, certain parts of the project have been used as models for similar projects throughout the world."
  
  In 1998, Mazur has served as co-team leader for a 15-person multi-disciplinary mission to expand teaching and research collaboration between Iowa State faculty and colleagues in Thailand. He is currently the PI on a proposal for a three-year program of research and training for the Center for Population Studies at the Royal University in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. One of his former Ph.D. students will serve as on-site coordinator.
  
  "We'll be able to really train the staff from the ground up," he said. "Everything from designing a study, interviewing, the analysis of the data to working with policy makers and colleagues in non-governmental development organizations.
  
  "This particular project links my central research areas and the needs of their society," Mazur continued. "We'll be able to influence a whole generation of university-based researchers in Cambodia."
  
  Mazur's international work is also felt in his classroom.
  
  "Most of my courses have strong international components," he said. "The United States represents just five percent of the world’s population. Students need to know what is going on in the rest of the world.
  
  "They need to be well prepared to engage meaningfully with the larger complex world throughout their personal and professional lives."
  

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February 4-10, 2002

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