Contact Information
720 S. Wright St.
MC-454
Urbana, IL 61801
Champaign, IL 61820
Research Areas
Research Interests
Development
Environmental Sociology
Ecological Restoration
Collaborative Governance
Sustainability
Research Description
The primary question that motivates my research is: How do people participate in the decisions that affect their lives? In the past, I empirically investigated and theoretically explored this through the lens of community-based development in urban Tanzania. My current research looks at a contemporary aspect of nature-society relations that is fashioned from the principles of ecological restoration and collaborative governance. What I refer to as restorative development is an intentional practice to improve collective well-being by restoring damaged ecosystems and enhancing the social, cultural, and economic relationships that are tied to a particular landscape.
Education
PhD., University of Minnesota
Courses Taught
Soc 122: Africa in World Perspective
Soc 161: Introduction to Poverty
Soc 226: Political Sociology
Soc 364: Impacts of Globalization
Soc 561: Development Theories
Soc 596: Global and Transnational Sociology
Global Studies 350: Poverty in a Global Context
Global Studies 450: Poverty Interventions and Evaluation
Additional Campus Affiliations
Associate Professor, Sociology
Associate Professor, Center for African Studies
Affiliate, Geography and Geographic Information Science
External Links
Highlighted Publications
Dill, B. J. (2013). Fixing the African State: Recognition, Politics, and Community-Based Development in Tanzania. (Africa Connects). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137281418
Recent Publications
Dill, B. (2025). How Institutional Layering Shapes Collaborative Governance: An Examination of Forest Collaboratives in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Sociology Compass, 19(2), Article e70045. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.70045
Schreiber, K. L., RodrÃguez, L. F., Witmer, A. P., & Dill, B. (2019). Understanding and incorporating stakeholder perspectives in international engineering: A phrase mining analysis. Paper presented at 2019 ASABE Annual International Meeting, Boston, United States. https://doi.org/10.13031/aim.201901425
Dill, B. J., & Khalil, H. (2018). Financing Sustainable Development? How International Tax Reform is Failing Africa. In J. L. De Maio, S. Scheld, & M. Woldeamanuel (Eds.), Sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa: Problems, Perspectives, and Prospects (pp. 91-108). Lexington Books.
Khalil, H., & Dill, B. (2018). Negotiating statist neoliberalism: the political economy of post-revolution Egypt. Review of African Political Economy, 45(158), 574-591. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2018.1547187
Dill, B., & Aminzade, R. (2017). Historians and the Study of Protest. In C. Roggeband, & B. Klandermans (Eds.), Handbook of Social Movements Across Disciplines (pp. 141-183). (Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57648-0_6