GEOG 3 Study Terms

Andrew Szasz

Argues that suburbs were built on inverted quarantine, where wealthy residents treat the environment as toxic and move to gated communities, causing the decline of city tax bases.

Wei Li

Introduces the ethnoburb, multiethnic suburban clusters (like Monterey Park) that challenge the idea that upward mobility requires cultural assimilation.

Kay Anderson

Uses the Adelaide Zoo to show how "nature" is constructed through different epistemes (e.g., "zoo as circus" vs. "biobank").

Mark Spence

Argues that Yellowstone was produced through the forcible removal of native populations to create a "pristine" wilderness.

Anna Tsing

Explores "gaps"—conceptual spaces where categories like "nature" vs. "development" do not fit well (e.g., the Meratus Dayaks’ swiddens).

Charles Sepulveda

Proposes Kuuyam (guest) as a decolonial framework for settlers to live ethically on Tongva land, viewing nature relationally.

Cole and Foster

Identify environmental racism in Kettleman City, where a toxic dump was sited because the Cerrell Report targeted low-resistance communities.

Pellow and Park

Look behind the "Silicon Curtain" to reveal the human/ecological devastation of high-tech production in Silicon Valley and Asia.

Duhigg & Barboza

Detail the human costs of the iPad supply chain, including explosions and harsh labor in Chinese factories.

Erika Lee

Argues the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a "watershed" that established the U.S. as a gatekeeping nation and created the machinery of passports and "green cards".

Benedict Anderson

Defined the nation as an "imagined community.

Gloria Anzaldúa

Describes the border as an "open wound" and a "gap" where the Third World grates against the first; she advocates for a mestiza consciousness that juggles cultures.

Roberto Gonzales

Identifies "illegality as a master status" for the 1.5 generation, where turning 18 marks a transition from "protected student" to "deportable adult".

Julie Chu

Studies emplacement and the geography of desire in China, showing how those left behind feel "stuck" while the social world moves on through remittances.

Susan Coutin

Introduced the "space of nonexistence," an official "outside" of the social body where undocumented people exist in subjection.

Ian Cook

Uses "follow the thing" (the papaya) to trace a commodity chain from Jamaican farms to UK supermarkets, exposing the invisible labor of "distant strangers".

Seth Holmes

Argues that the suffering of Oaxacan berry pickers is "naturalized" through citizen/ethnic hierarchies (e.g., "they are closer to the ground").

Julie Guthman

Examines how organic food shifted from a counter-cuisine to "yuppie chow," arguing that organic salad mix now relies on the same marginalized labor as fast food.