Teaching: Approach and Goals

Administrative Roles and Philosophy

My theoretical and empirical work is concerned with the social and economic effects of global economic restructuring in the Americas.  I engage with three key literatures: first, feminist and poststructural theories of migration and identity formation; second, critical development studies work on neoliberal modernization debates, informal work and the feminization of poverty; and third, postcolonial theory which explores the ways in which power dynamics are structured around discourses and practices of race, class, gender, sexuality and nationality.

A recent project funded by the National Science Foundation, collaborative with Lucy Jarosz, builds analysis at the intersections of migrant experiences, ruling group and popular culture discourses, and the wider political-economy.  This research examines the geography of white rural poverty in the American Northwest as it is being transformed in relation to dramatic population growth and restructuring of employment opportunities in rural counties in recent decades.  Our preliminary research reveals that the social and cultural tensions emerging in the Pacific Northwest, and their expression through terms such as 'redneck'.  We examine these class and place tensions emerging as middle class whites migrate into working class and poor rural communities.  First we analyze the political economy of rural restructuring in Montana, Idaho, and Washington over the past twenty-five years through extensive bibliographic, archival and survey research.  Second, we conduct a pilot study of middle class in-migrants into rural communities in order to understand how their definitions of rural working people obscures class conflict over rising inequality in rural communities.

A second project is a book titled 'Critical Development Geographies' which is under contract for the Edward Arnold Series, Human Geography in the Making, series editor, Alexander Murphy.  This book assesses recent intellectual trends within development geography/studies and argues that a poststructural feminist political-economy approach constitutes an exciting future for development geography.  I introduce readers to Critical Development Geography (CDG) which analyzes development as polyvalent and contextual in terms of its intellectual and material foundations.  CDG also attends to the formation and experiences of diverse subjects of development, analyzing the ways in which particular intellectual streams privilege or erase different subjects and actors.  Finally, and central to CDG, I argue that attending to the spatiality of development -- the ways in which discourses and practices of development link places, move through scales and operate in relation to boundaries -- can reveal and help explain the paradoxes and also work to democratize development.

A third project, funded initially by the National Science Foundation, examines the social and economic effects of neoliberal modernization in Ecuador.  Neoliberalism is distinct from earlier waves of modernization in that the political project of ruling groups is grounded in liberal discourses that gain consent from the majority of the population.  In Ecuador, there is a growing split between discourses of prosperity and opportunity on one hand and increasing social polarization, loss of national sovereignty and economic crisis on the other.  I examine the implications of this split for rural-to-urban in-migrants.  Migrants are the focus of this project because they occupy a vulnerable position within the capital city in terms of access to work, shelter and social networks of support.  This very vulnerability is a bellweather for the local impacts of neoliberal modernization.  Second, recent in-migrants, who have responded to the promises of economic development, but who remain marginal to urban society are uniquely positioned to articulate the contradictions of neoliberal modernization.  Migrants inhabit a fluid subject position, from which they have a critical edge due to the very dislocations and perspectives that mobility produces.  It is from these two vantage points, that I build a critical analysis of the effects of neoliberalism on the restructuring of work, state-society relations, social inequality and daily lives in Ecuador. 

For more information on my current research, grants and publications, please refer to my curriculum vitae.
 

My courses develop the same themes and approaches as my research.  At both undergraduate and graduate levels, I incorporate theoretical and empirical material that illustrate and build understandings of development and restructuring processes across the Americas.  My courses are designed to encourage students to think of the Americas as integrally connected through historical and contemporary political and economic relationships.  I draw on development studies to identify social, cultural, economic and political issues and processes that have broad reach and relevance across the Americas. 

I approach teaching and learning as student-centered activities, believing that students must be committed to the design of their own education.  Undergraduate students in my classes engage in active-learning in a variety of settings, including group work in lab sections and particularly through service-learning.  I encourage graduate students to engage their research ideas through empirical fieldwork, and to gain hands-on experience with proposal writing and professional publishing.  Ultimately, the goal of my teaching is to engage students as citizens and as intellectuals who are addressing some of the pressing issues of their times.

For more information, please refer to my courses page.
 

I have served in a variety of administrative positions, ranging from department chair, to member of the National Science Foundation proposal review panel, to chair of the research committee for the Association of American Geographers.  I believe that administrative work is an important element of professional service for our Department, our campus and also in the discipline at large.  In each of these positions, I have worked collaboratively to identify areas of importance and to guide initiatives that were important to the collectives with which I worked. 

As department chair, I worked with members of the department to identify several important initiatives.  For example, we underwent a thoughtful and successful ten year review process.  We worked to revision our graduate program; build a vision for our future development and community outreach activities; design and engage in a strategic planning process; build our web presence to communicate widely about the department; and build on an ongoing curriculum assessment project.  In all of these projects, members of the department worked together to foster open communication, to consult widely and to create an environment that is supportive of good ideas, from whichever quarter.  From all of this work I have learned that service involves trying to build a ‘culture of possibilities’ that allows creative people to do their best work.

For more information on my administrative roles and positions, please refer to my curriculum vitae.