Social and Environmental Justice Research
Geographers use nature-society frameworks and spatial analysis to understand how inequality and inequity are built into everyday life for individuals based on where they live, work, go to school, and play.
Geographers who study social and environmental justice are particularly interested in how spaces are produced that advantage some people while disadvantaging others based on characteristics like race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
Geography courses provide students with an opportunity to study forces such as capitalism, racism and sexism, which affect the distribution of wealth, opportunities, power, and privilege within a society. Just as importantly, courses in this concentration are concerned with practical steps toward realizing a more just world.
Geography courses provide students the conceptual and analytical tools essential to a range of career paths that engage with social inequality and environmental sustainability, including employment in urban planning, public policy, international development, and the private sector.
Our Faculty Researchers
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Geoffrey L. Buckley--Environmental justice
--Historical geography
--Public lands
--Urban sustainability -
Yeong-Hyun Kim-Globalization
--Economic geography
--Urban geography
--Asia -
Harold PerkinsPolitical ecology and economy of environments, including topics of neoliberalization, the state, governance, environmental justice, and the agency of nonhuman organisms
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Thomas Smucker--Environment and development
--Rural livelihood systems
--Food systems and food security
--Adaptation to climate change
--Environmental governance
--African drylands -
E. Edna Wangui--Gender
--Rural livelihoods and landscape change in East Africa -
Risa Whitson--Gender and development
--Social geographies
--Informal sector
--Argentina