Research

Engaging with urban political ecology, environmental justice, community development, organizing, critical urban theory, and popular education research and practice, I investigate processes of urban social and environmental change. I am especially interested in the learning and politicization processes of people who work collectively as agents of change, including grassroots organizers, community leaders, teachers and youth workers, young people, artists and musicians, planners, public officials, and ordinary urban residents. 

A series of questions guides my research: What's going on? Who gains, who loses, and by what mechanisms? Is this desirable? What should be done about it?* These questions are particularly relevant in so-called sustainable cities, where it is often implied that all will benefit equally from green development. Sustainability initiatives include walkable neighborhoods, bicycle infrastructure, urban farms, and waterfront parkways. Without specific measures to mitigate rising rents and address other disparities falling along lines of race, class, and gender, however, these sustainability-themed projects frequently contribute to displacement and oppression of communities of color and lower-income households.

A growing number of grassroots groups are working for a more just  sustainability - by intervening in mainstream green development processes on behalf of marginalized groups, as well as by initiating community-controlled projects. ​I often use a participatory action research framework in crafting and investigating research questions with people working for change from the ground up. I also integrate traditional qualitative social science methods in my research, including participant observation, interviews, focus groups, content analysis, and archival research.
*These questions are inspired by: Flyvjberg, B. (2001) Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How it Can Succeed Again. Cambridge University Press.

Current & Past Projects

Grassroots Resistance in the Sustainable City: Portland Harbor Superfund Site Contamination, Cleanup, and Collective Action
My dissertation research examined grassroots organizing in so-called “sustainable cities”. Three questions guided this research: 1) What historical and present-day circumstances give rise to grassroots collective action? 2) How do grassroots groups organize to ensure equitable distribution of benefits (e.g., jobs, affordable housing, green space, etc.) emerging from urban sustainability initiatives? 3) What role does learning play in the politicization and collective action of people working for social and environmental justice in the context of the green city? I addressed these questions through an extended case study with the Portland Harbor Community Coalition, an alliance of over a dozen grassroots groups working for an equitable cleanup of the Portland Harbor Superfund site. I used ethnographic, participatory action research, and archival methods to examine linkages between three interrelated scales: sustainability planning and policy at the city scale, collective action at the grassroots coalition scale, and learning and political subject formation processes at the individual scale.

Equity Planning: The Community Watershed Stewardship Program
Unless social justice objectives are pursued explicitly in sustainability planning, green initiatives tend to reinforce existing race- and class-based disparities. Yet, critiques of sustainability planning rarely offer concrete suggestions for more emancipatory ways forward. Examining exceptional cases in which municipal leaders have already taken alternative paths provides a window into the politics, power dynamics, and practices involved in urban greening initiatives that are attendant to the needs of historically marginalized groups. Moreover, bringing attention to such examples may provide inspiration and the foundations of a strategic approach for other municipal leaders seeking to cultivate a more just sustainability (Agyeman 2005). This research draws on Norman Krumholz’s equity planning framework to outline how one municipal program in Portland, Oregon, the Community Watershed Stewardship Program, overtly prioritizes the needs and desires of underrepresented groups as part of its watershed health mission.

No-Cause Evictions: Culturally Specific Experiences
In Oregon, landlords are legally allowed to evict tenants without stated cause or documentation. Evictions wreak havoc on people's lives and tear communities apart, and fear of eviction often deters tenants from asking for needed repairs. This community-based participatory research project is in collaboration with the Community Alliance of Tenants and Moriah McSharry McGrath (Portland State University). Through tenant-led focus groups and interviews, this study investigates eviction-related experiences with seven (overlapping) groups: Black/African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees, people with disabilities, queer/trans people, and elders. The results of this research will contribute to CAT's efforts to establish rent stabilization laws and a "just cause" standard for eviction for the state of Oregon. 

Citizen Science: Gitga’at Nation and Groundwork Green Team Portland Youth Exchange
Coming soon...