Research & Collaborations
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Broadly, my research explores cities and the environment at multiple scales through a lens of urban political ecology and critical urban studies. Much of my research has examined the intersection between urban agriculture (UA) movements in the US and Canada, food systems policy and planning, and the specific urban political economies and historical geographies in which they arise. I also work on environmental justice issues. I conduct both applied and theoretically engaged research using a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods. In doing so, I hope to innovate urban environmental and food systems research on a theoretical level by drawing attention to social processes: notably to "everyday" politics and governance and their relationship to formal policy, planning, and the broader political economy, and how these relations articulate with and work through race, class, and gender within the broader historical-geographic context of settler colonialism and racial capitalism. At the same time, I hope to contribute to critical geography and food studies through my commitment to participatory and community-engaged activist scholarship with implications for policy and planning. Ongoing and past projects include:
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CURRENT PROJECTS
Urban agriculture, eco-gentrification, and equity in the Sustainable City: Comparative study of Portland and Vancouver (2012 - 2020)
My primary project right now focuses on the relationship between UA policy, practice, and political economy, with particular attention to the ways in which UA is entangled in processes of gentrification and investment in the “sustainable city”, and the role of UA advocates in food policy-making forums. Funded by the National Science Foundation, I'm working with Eugene McCann and Christiana Miewald at Simon Fraser University on a series of journal articles presenting the results of our comparative study (2015-2020) of these processes in Portland, OR and Vancouver, BC. Visit www.UrbanAg.info for details, publications, and updates. A forthcoming article in IJURR rethinks urban agriculture governance based on our findings, and an article in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers lays out the some of the theoretical framework for understanding green gentrification. The project builds on pilot research (2012-2015), including a historical paper published in Urban Geography that I co-authored with former PhD students Erin Goodling and Jamaal Green, and a study published in Landscape and Urban Planning with my former graduate students Dillon Mahmoudi and Mike Simpson and visiting scholar Dr. Jacinto Santos, in which we mapped residential gardens in Portland and conducted a mail survey to determine consumption patterns, food access, and participation in food production.
The Portland Black Gardens Oral History and Archival Project (2017 - ongoing)
Supported with funding from by an Antipode Foundation Scholar-Activist Project Award, I'm working with Shantae Johnson and Arthur Shavers of MudBone Grown to collect stories of Black Portlanders who gardened during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. As part of the project, we're also conducting archival research on the Green Fingers Project, a community gardening initiative led by Ms. Viviane Barnett from 1968 to 1982, in Portland's Albina district, the historic heart of Black Portland. In thinking through this project, I authored an article for Geography Compass entitled "Urban agriculture, racial capitalism, and resistance in the settler-colonial city". Stay tuned for more via our project website (still under construction).
Urban agriculture, social, and environmental change in Metropolitan Montreal (2017 - 2020)
An ongoing project, funded by the climatology research institute Ouranos and the Institut National de Santé Publique du Québec, complements my work in Portland and Vancouver. My colleagues Éric Duchemin and Hiên Pham at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) and I are investigating UA's potential contributions to climate change adaptation in five municipalities in Metropolitan Montreal. Building on my methodological approach with the NSF project, the 3-year project, entitled "Agriculture urbaine comme infrastructure verte de résilience", integrates mapping, surveys, and interviews to assess UA's socio-spatial variability across the region and its contributions to biodiversity, soil quality, and household food consumption. I was privileged to spend the 2018/2019 academic year in Montreal, splitting my time between UQÀM's Institut des sciences de l'environnement and Concordia University's Department of Geography, Planning & Environment.
RESTING SAFE: Street Science for EJ in Houseless Rest Areas (2018 - ongoing)
I'm collaborating on a community-based participatory research project called RESTING SAFE, which examines environmental justice issues in rest areas (or encampments) for houseless individuals. The project brings together houseless community leaders and activist-researchers to investigate and intervene in environmental hazards in the places where houseless people are building homes. This project will arm houseless communities with information about their sites' precise types and levels of pollution, and will provide tools for communities to reduce risks, themselves, or push government agencies to do so. I'm honored to working with an amazing team that includes several former students on this project, funded by the Antipode Foundation and NSF.
Portland-Hartley Bay Exchange (2016 - ongoing)
I've been working with Dr. Max Ritts (SLU-Alnarp, Sweden), POIC/Rosemary Anderson High School in Portland, and the Gitga'at First Nation in Hartley Bay, BC, Canada on an annual youth exchange. Now in its 4th year, the exchange brings together youth leaders from two very different communities to work together on environmental concerns and challenges. RAHS is a small alternative high school operated by Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center (POIC), where diverse youth from low-income areas in Portland find mentorship and a fresh start. Hartley Bay is a remote community located 4 hours south of Prince Rupert on BC's North Coast. Youth from Portland traveled to Gitga'at territory to learn about the Gitga'at Nation's efforts to protect their ancestral homeland in the face of oil and gas production and a changing climate, while youth from Hartley Bay and Prince Rupert have traveled to Portland to learn about social and environmental challenges facing Portland's diverse communities.
My primary project right now focuses on the relationship between UA policy, practice, and political economy, with particular attention to the ways in which UA is entangled in processes of gentrification and investment in the “sustainable city”, and the role of UA advocates in food policy-making forums. Funded by the National Science Foundation, I'm working with Eugene McCann and Christiana Miewald at Simon Fraser University on a series of journal articles presenting the results of our comparative study (2015-2020) of these processes in Portland, OR and Vancouver, BC. Visit www.UrbanAg.info for details, publications, and updates. A forthcoming article in IJURR rethinks urban agriculture governance based on our findings, and an article in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers lays out the some of the theoretical framework for understanding green gentrification. The project builds on pilot research (2012-2015), including a historical paper published in Urban Geography that I co-authored with former PhD students Erin Goodling and Jamaal Green, and a study published in Landscape and Urban Planning with my former graduate students Dillon Mahmoudi and Mike Simpson and visiting scholar Dr. Jacinto Santos, in which we mapped residential gardens in Portland and conducted a mail survey to determine consumption patterns, food access, and participation in food production.
The Portland Black Gardens Oral History and Archival Project (2017 - ongoing)
Supported with funding from by an Antipode Foundation Scholar-Activist Project Award, I'm working with Shantae Johnson and Arthur Shavers of MudBone Grown to collect stories of Black Portlanders who gardened during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. As part of the project, we're also conducting archival research on the Green Fingers Project, a community gardening initiative led by Ms. Viviane Barnett from 1968 to 1982, in Portland's Albina district, the historic heart of Black Portland. In thinking through this project, I authored an article for Geography Compass entitled "Urban agriculture, racial capitalism, and resistance in the settler-colonial city". Stay tuned for more via our project website (still under construction).
Urban agriculture, social, and environmental change in Metropolitan Montreal (2017 - 2020)
An ongoing project, funded by the climatology research institute Ouranos and the Institut National de Santé Publique du Québec, complements my work in Portland and Vancouver. My colleagues Éric Duchemin and Hiên Pham at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) and I are investigating UA's potential contributions to climate change adaptation in five municipalities in Metropolitan Montreal. Building on my methodological approach with the NSF project, the 3-year project, entitled "Agriculture urbaine comme infrastructure verte de résilience", integrates mapping, surveys, and interviews to assess UA's socio-spatial variability across the region and its contributions to biodiversity, soil quality, and household food consumption. I was privileged to spend the 2018/2019 academic year in Montreal, splitting my time between UQÀM's Institut des sciences de l'environnement and Concordia University's Department of Geography, Planning & Environment.
RESTING SAFE: Street Science for EJ in Houseless Rest Areas (2018 - ongoing)
I'm collaborating on a community-based participatory research project called RESTING SAFE, which examines environmental justice issues in rest areas (or encampments) for houseless individuals. The project brings together houseless community leaders and activist-researchers to investigate and intervene in environmental hazards in the places where houseless people are building homes. This project will arm houseless communities with information about their sites' precise types and levels of pollution, and will provide tools for communities to reduce risks, themselves, or push government agencies to do so. I'm honored to working with an amazing team that includes several former students on this project, funded by the Antipode Foundation and NSF.
Portland-Hartley Bay Exchange (2016 - ongoing)
I've been working with Dr. Max Ritts (SLU-Alnarp, Sweden), POIC/Rosemary Anderson High School in Portland, and the Gitga'at First Nation in Hartley Bay, BC, Canada on an annual youth exchange. Now in its 4th year, the exchange brings together youth leaders from two very different communities to work together on environmental concerns and challenges. RAHS is a small alternative high school operated by Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center (POIC), where diverse youth from low-income areas in Portland find mentorship and a fresh start. Hartley Bay is a remote community located 4 hours south of Prince Rupert on BC's North Coast. Youth from Portland traveled to Gitga'at territory to learn about the Gitga'at Nation's efforts to protect their ancestral homeland in the face of oil and gas production and a changing climate, while youth from Hartley Bay and Prince Rupert have traveled to Portland to learn about social and environmental challenges facing Portland's diverse communities.
PAST PROJECTS
Agriculture MTL-PDX: Comparing UA policy, practice, and participation in Montréal and Portland (2014 - 2016)
This project, funded by a grant from the Government of Québec, incorporated a research project and a field course/exchange conducted in Aug/Sep 2015 in partnership with Éric Duchemin at UQÀM’s AU/Lab and students from PSU, UQÀM, and UdeM. Situating our research within theoretical debates over collaborative planning and “post-politics” of sustainability, our PSU team evaluated recent participatory planning initiatives related to UA in both cities, as well as exploring the role of UA in gentrification in both cities and how the spectacle (as conceived by Guy Dubord) of UA also contributes to process of capitalist urbanization. The project also funded MUS student Claire Bach's thesis work on the spatial politics of UA in Montreal. Calire and I co-authored an article based on this work, forthcoming in Environment & Planning C: Politics & Space.
Survey of UA organizations and businesses in the US and Canada (2013 - 2014)
Mike Simpson and I conducted a survey of urban agriculture initiatives to better understand the practices, motivations, networks, labor and funding sources, and on-the-ground needs or UA organizations and businesses. We released a report of our preliminary results in 2014. Based on this survey, our article in Agriculture and Human Values identifies and describes six diverse but overlapping "motivational frames" - Entrepreneurial, Sustainable Development, Eco-Centric, Educational, DIY Secessionist, and Radical - employed by practitioners engaging in UA.
PDX Garden Stories (2015- 2016)
Over two years, my senior capstone students and I conducted interviews with 20 participants in various programs of the non-profit Growing Gardens. Transcripts of the interviews, as well, as short A/V clips of the various gardeners are posted to the project website, and also linked to Julian Agyeman's collection of various food justice initiatives across the country.
Who is at the table? Fostering anti-oppression practice through food justice dialogues (2013)
Developed together with masters students Jen Turner, Alex Novie, and Monica Cuneo, and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies faculty Sally Eck, this participatory workshop series held in early 2013 provided Portland’s social justice and food systems activists the opportunity to collaborate, learn, network, and co-produce anti-oppression strategies with the goal of fostering the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, cross-class alliances necessary to transform the food movement into an integrated effort that emphasizes both food systems and social justice. It was funded by a grant from PSU’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions. You can read about the project in a chapter in an edited volume entitled Sustainable Solutions: Let Knowledge Serve the City.
Assessment and toolkit for the Urban Farm Collective (2012 - 2014)
My Senior Capstone class and I worked in collaboration with Portland’s Urban Farm Collective to analyze the impact of the organization’s work and to make recommendations for how to better engage a more diverse community in light of gentrification in Inner NE Portland. In 2014, we developed a food justice framework and outreach plan for the Collective.
Cultivating the Commons: Scaling up urban agriculture in Oakland (2008 - 2011)
This multi-year project was the focus of my doctoral dissertation work at UC Berkeley. My dissertation advisor at Berkeley was Nathan Sayre, and I also worked closely with my committee members Dick Walker, Jason Corburn, and Gary Sposito, and an advisory committee comprised of representatives from city agencies, community members, and non-profits. Research was funded in part by a mini-grant from the HOPE Collaborative and sponsored by City Slicker Farms. My team of undergraduate research assistants and volunteers and I inventoried vacant and underutilized public land in Oakland in order to assess its possible contribution to urban food production. The resulting report, Cultivating the Commons (released in November 2009, revised in 2010), has been used by the Oakland Food Policy Council to inform municipal food policy in its report, Transforming Oakland's Food System: A Plan for Action, and by the Oakland Climate Coalition for the Energy and Climate Action Plan. As soil contamination may be an obstacle to the expansion of urban agriculture at some sites, we conducted soil sampling at about 120 of the vacant sites we identified, and used GIS to map and analyze concentrations of lead (Pb). Preliminary assessment of 20 sites in July 2009 was funded by a pilot research grant from the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources Analytical Lab in Davis, CA. Funding from the National Science Foundation allowed us to expand our sampling to 100 additional sites throughout Oakland in 2010. We also conducted an experiment at UC Berkeley's Oxford Tract Greenhouses and collected plant tissue samples at selected urban gardens to assess the bioavailability of Pb in urban soils. At the site-scale, we located potential "hot spots" where metals levels are high enough to be of concern; similarly, at the neighborhood- and municipal-scales, we identified areas in need of further assessment before food production proceeds. The project resulted in articles published in Applied Geography, Landscape & Urban Planning, and the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems & Community Development, Local Environment, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy & Society, and a chapter in the edited volume Cultivating Food Justice. I revisited the dataset for an article in published in Geoforum, in which I develop a "critical physical geography" of urban soil contamination.
Baseline agroecological assessment and farmer needs survey in Haiti's Central Plateau (2004 - 2005)
I worked with the French non-governmental organization Zanmi Lasante Paris, which operates in coordination with Partners in Health, to conduct a farmer needs assessment in the Plateau Central. We interviewed 200 farmers in more than a dozen villages, as well as conducted a baseline survey of agroecological characteristics and farming practices. The report (also published in French) was quoted in the opening lines in a National Geographic article on soil in Haiti. More importantly, the research laid the groundwork for a "training of trainers" workshop in June 2005 for extensionists working with two peasant organizations, ASEDECC and SOPABO. I developed the training materials (in Kreyòl) with fellow NCSU alum Arthur "Gill" Green (University of Guelph).
Sustainable soil management and regenerative agriculture in Senegal's Peanut Basin (2003 - 2004)
I took a semester off from my thesis research in North Carolina to work with The Rodale Institute, which at the time had an office in Thiès, Senegal. The Joor soils of Senegal's Peanut Basin are inherently low in organic matter, limiting yields of millet and other crops and threatening the food security of smallholders. We conducted a series of focus groups and interviews in eight villages to characterize site-specific fertility management practiced by farmers in the Peanut Basin. On-site measurements revealed little significant difference between the effects of compost and manure on peanut and millet growth, but significant increases over unamended areas. Similarly, chemical analysis revealed increased cation exchange capacity and nutrient concentrations in soils amended with compost or manure. Similarities in the chemical characteristics of compost and traditional pile manure (sentaare) suggest that development workers could emphasize improved pile management rather than promoting more labor-intensive composting. See the resulting article in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. The Rodale Institute hired me the next year to identify and interview innovative farmers across Senegal for a series of thirteen stories, Sustainable in Senegal, published in Rodale's online NewFarm magazine.
Compost and vermicompost production and utilization in sustainable farming systems (2002 - 2004)
My MS research focused on compost production and use in sustainable farming systems. My MS thesis research at North Carolina State University's Department of Crop Science focused on compost production and utilization in an organic farming system in North Carolina and in a smallholder subsistence farming system in semi-arid West Africa. Working under Dr. Noah Ranells and Dr. Nancy Creamer, I conducted an experiment was conducted at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) in Goldsboro, NC, to compare methods of composting separated solid swine waste and various rates of wheat straw, and another experiment was conducted at CEFS and Central Carolina Community College's Sustainable Farming Program's Land Lab in Pittsboro, NC, to evaluate the integration of compost with cover crops, both common sources of fertility in organic farming systems. I synthesized some of this research in a Cooperative Extension bulletin. My work in Senegal (see above) also made it into my master's thesis.
This project, funded by a grant from the Government of Québec, incorporated a research project and a field course/exchange conducted in Aug/Sep 2015 in partnership with Éric Duchemin at UQÀM’s AU/Lab and students from PSU, UQÀM, and UdeM. Situating our research within theoretical debates over collaborative planning and “post-politics” of sustainability, our PSU team evaluated recent participatory planning initiatives related to UA in both cities, as well as exploring the role of UA in gentrification in both cities and how the spectacle (as conceived by Guy Dubord) of UA also contributes to process of capitalist urbanization. The project also funded MUS student Claire Bach's thesis work on the spatial politics of UA in Montreal. Calire and I co-authored an article based on this work, forthcoming in Environment & Planning C: Politics & Space.
Survey of UA organizations and businesses in the US and Canada (2013 - 2014)
Mike Simpson and I conducted a survey of urban agriculture initiatives to better understand the practices, motivations, networks, labor and funding sources, and on-the-ground needs or UA organizations and businesses. We released a report of our preliminary results in 2014. Based on this survey, our article in Agriculture and Human Values identifies and describes six diverse but overlapping "motivational frames" - Entrepreneurial, Sustainable Development, Eco-Centric, Educational, DIY Secessionist, and Radical - employed by practitioners engaging in UA.
PDX Garden Stories (2015- 2016)
Over two years, my senior capstone students and I conducted interviews with 20 participants in various programs of the non-profit Growing Gardens. Transcripts of the interviews, as well, as short A/V clips of the various gardeners are posted to the project website, and also linked to Julian Agyeman's collection of various food justice initiatives across the country.
Who is at the table? Fostering anti-oppression practice through food justice dialogues (2013)
Developed together with masters students Jen Turner, Alex Novie, and Monica Cuneo, and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies faculty Sally Eck, this participatory workshop series held in early 2013 provided Portland’s social justice and food systems activists the opportunity to collaborate, learn, network, and co-produce anti-oppression strategies with the goal of fostering the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, cross-class alliances necessary to transform the food movement into an integrated effort that emphasizes both food systems and social justice. It was funded by a grant from PSU’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions. You can read about the project in a chapter in an edited volume entitled Sustainable Solutions: Let Knowledge Serve the City.
Assessment and toolkit for the Urban Farm Collective (2012 - 2014)
My Senior Capstone class and I worked in collaboration with Portland’s Urban Farm Collective to analyze the impact of the organization’s work and to make recommendations for how to better engage a more diverse community in light of gentrification in Inner NE Portland. In 2014, we developed a food justice framework and outreach plan for the Collective.
Cultivating the Commons: Scaling up urban agriculture in Oakland (2008 - 2011)
This multi-year project was the focus of my doctoral dissertation work at UC Berkeley. My dissertation advisor at Berkeley was Nathan Sayre, and I also worked closely with my committee members Dick Walker, Jason Corburn, and Gary Sposito, and an advisory committee comprised of representatives from city agencies, community members, and non-profits. Research was funded in part by a mini-grant from the HOPE Collaborative and sponsored by City Slicker Farms. My team of undergraduate research assistants and volunteers and I inventoried vacant and underutilized public land in Oakland in order to assess its possible contribution to urban food production. The resulting report, Cultivating the Commons (released in November 2009, revised in 2010), has been used by the Oakland Food Policy Council to inform municipal food policy in its report, Transforming Oakland's Food System: A Plan for Action, and by the Oakland Climate Coalition for the Energy and Climate Action Plan. As soil contamination may be an obstacle to the expansion of urban agriculture at some sites, we conducted soil sampling at about 120 of the vacant sites we identified, and used GIS to map and analyze concentrations of lead (Pb). Preliminary assessment of 20 sites in July 2009 was funded by a pilot research grant from the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources Analytical Lab in Davis, CA. Funding from the National Science Foundation allowed us to expand our sampling to 100 additional sites throughout Oakland in 2010. We also conducted an experiment at UC Berkeley's Oxford Tract Greenhouses and collected plant tissue samples at selected urban gardens to assess the bioavailability of Pb in urban soils. At the site-scale, we located potential "hot spots" where metals levels are high enough to be of concern; similarly, at the neighborhood- and municipal-scales, we identified areas in need of further assessment before food production proceeds. The project resulted in articles published in Applied Geography, Landscape & Urban Planning, and the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems & Community Development, Local Environment, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy & Society, and a chapter in the edited volume Cultivating Food Justice. I revisited the dataset for an article in published in Geoforum, in which I develop a "critical physical geography" of urban soil contamination.
Baseline agroecological assessment and farmer needs survey in Haiti's Central Plateau (2004 - 2005)
I worked with the French non-governmental organization Zanmi Lasante Paris, which operates in coordination with Partners in Health, to conduct a farmer needs assessment in the Plateau Central. We interviewed 200 farmers in more than a dozen villages, as well as conducted a baseline survey of agroecological characteristics and farming practices. The report (also published in French) was quoted in the opening lines in a National Geographic article on soil in Haiti. More importantly, the research laid the groundwork for a "training of trainers" workshop in June 2005 for extensionists working with two peasant organizations, ASEDECC and SOPABO. I developed the training materials (in Kreyòl) with fellow NCSU alum Arthur "Gill" Green (University of Guelph).
Sustainable soil management and regenerative agriculture in Senegal's Peanut Basin (2003 - 2004)
I took a semester off from my thesis research in North Carolina to work with The Rodale Institute, which at the time had an office in Thiès, Senegal. The Joor soils of Senegal's Peanut Basin are inherently low in organic matter, limiting yields of millet and other crops and threatening the food security of smallholders. We conducted a series of focus groups and interviews in eight villages to characterize site-specific fertility management practiced by farmers in the Peanut Basin. On-site measurements revealed little significant difference between the effects of compost and manure on peanut and millet growth, but significant increases over unamended areas. Similarly, chemical analysis revealed increased cation exchange capacity and nutrient concentrations in soils amended with compost or manure. Similarities in the chemical characteristics of compost and traditional pile manure (sentaare) suggest that development workers could emphasize improved pile management rather than promoting more labor-intensive composting. See the resulting article in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. The Rodale Institute hired me the next year to identify and interview innovative farmers across Senegal for a series of thirteen stories, Sustainable in Senegal, published in Rodale's online NewFarm magazine.
Compost and vermicompost production and utilization in sustainable farming systems (2002 - 2004)
My MS research focused on compost production and use in sustainable farming systems. My MS thesis research at North Carolina State University's Department of Crop Science focused on compost production and utilization in an organic farming system in North Carolina and in a smallholder subsistence farming system in semi-arid West Africa. Working under Dr. Noah Ranells and Dr. Nancy Creamer, I conducted an experiment was conducted at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) in Goldsboro, NC, to compare methods of composting separated solid swine waste and various rates of wheat straw, and another experiment was conducted at CEFS and Central Carolina Community College's Sustainable Farming Program's Land Lab in Pittsboro, NC, to evaluate the integration of compost with cover crops, both common sources of fertility in organic farming systems. I synthesized some of this research in a Cooperative Extension bulletin. My work in Senegal (see above) also made it into my master's thesis.
