Culture, Community & Place Research
Culture, Community, and Place scholarship is concerned with understanding our place in the world and thinking critically about inequality and power along lines of class, gender, race, and ethnicity. Intersections of racial, gender-, sexual-, and class-based identities shape perceptions of places and human experiences. Research by faculty and students in ESS investigates how societies evolve within cultural landscapes, how individuals construct identities in relation to their communities, and how places shape the everyday experiences of people and how placemaking occurs. We use community-based approaches to address place-based issues and examine ways of life, local knowledge, and cultural differences to understand the needs and values of diverse groups. ESS faculty and students explore the interconnections between people and place through a range of research themes, including landscape, mobility, food access, social justice, identity, ethnicity, and representation. By engaging with diverse communities and employing interdisciplinary approaches, we develop insights that inform policy-making, promote social justice, and enhance our understanding of the connections between people and place.
Culture, Community & Place Faculty
Associate Professor, SPARC Environmental Lab Director
Environmental Justice, Food Justice, Belonging, Critical Participatory Action Research, Eco-Justice Pedagogy
Assistant Professor
Development, Political Ecology, Cultural Anthropology, Critical Geopolitics, Energy Transition, Infrastructure, Tibet & the Himalaya, Southeast Asia, China
Associate Professor of Geography
Political Ecology, Energy and Environmental Governance, Urban Policies, Environmental
Justice, Cultural Geography, Latin America
Associate Professor
Political Geography, Political Violence, Kenya, Spatial Statistics, GIS, Climate Change, and Conflict
Associate Professor
Director, HATER Lab
GIS, Spatial analysis, Geography of Terrorism and Insurgent Activity, Complex Systems in Social and Geographic Spaces
Professor
Geomorphology, Stratigraphy, Sedimentology, Geoarchaeology, Arid Lands, Petroleum Geology