Institute for Advanced Study
University of Minnesota
Curriculum Vitae
Detailed CV (pdf)RACHEL SLOCUM
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Geography, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, Worcester, MA
MA, International Development, International Development Program, Clark University, Worcester, MA,
BA, Honors, Political Science, McGill University, Montréal, PQ, Canada
GRANTS and AWARDS
Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota, 2008
- Grant funded: A Survey of the Minneapolis Farmers' Market
The National Science Foundation, Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, Geography and Regional Science, 2004
- Grant funded: BCS 0417592 Community food systems and anti-racist practice
- Grant obtained as an independent scholar
The National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, 1999
- Grant funded: BCS 9900876 Urban commitments to greenhouse gas emissions abatement
Fulbright Scholarship,
Institute for International Education, United
States Information Agency, 1994
Master's research in Mali
Peace Corps Fellowship,
International Development Program, Clark
University, 1993
Scholarship for the MA program
ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE
Visiting Scholar, Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 2009- Pursuing writing projects
- Participating in an inter-disciplinary agri-food studies reading group
- Taught Social Inequality, Environment and Society and Environmental Citizenship, 15 contact hours of teaching per week
- Published original research
- Engaged in service at the college and departmental levels
- Received commendation from the Dean of Social Sciences on annual professional development goals and reports
- Proposed new courses: Gender, Space and Society: Global Perspectives, The Social Dimensions of Environmental Change and Environment and Society
Visiting Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, spring 2008
- Conducted research and writing on the geographies of race and food
Visiting Scholar, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 2004-05
- Conducted research on whiteness and anti-racist practice in the community food movement
Visiting Assistant Professor, Syracuse University, Department of Geography, Syracuse, NY, 2001-03
- Taught Global Environmental Change, Population Change, Worlds of Food and Famine, World Regional, Africa: Problems and Prospects
Visiting Assistant Professor, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, 2000
- Proposed and taught the seminar, Sustainable Cities
Research Assistant, Clark University Graduate School of Geography, Worcester, MA, 1996-99
PUBLICATIONS
2009. The embodied politics of pain in US anti-racism, ">ACME: An International E Journal for Critical Geographies 8(1):tba. (accepted October, 2007)
2009 (anticipated).
Discussant comments on
Michael Brown’s Urban
Geography Plenary lecture,
“Public
health as urban politics, urban geography: venereal biopower in
2008. Thinking race
through corporeal feminist theory: divisions and intimacies at the
2008 (anticipated). Sociological research directions on climate change: paper for public report to be published through the National Science Foundation
2007. Whiteness, space and alternative food practice. Geoforum 38(3):520-533. Chosen to be part of the virtual special issue celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Geoforum, which featured 26 papers which demonstrate the excellence and breadth of scholarship.
2006. Anti-racist practice in the work of community food organizations Antipode 38(2):327-349.
2004. Polar bears and energy-efficient light bulbs: strategies to bring climate change home Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 22(3):413-438.
2004. Consumer citizens and the Cities for Climate Protection campaign Environment and Planning A, 36(5):763-782.
Publications in process
Race, Biopolitics and Alternative Food. For the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, analysis of survey, interview and observational data 2004-2007 on race and the alternative food movementPublications with colleagues
Slocum, Rachel, Elisabeth Ellsworth and Arun Saldanha. Local food and public space: a study of Minneapolis Farmers’ Market customers’ perceptions and practices, CURA Reporter, June, 2009 (anticipated).
Slocum, Rachel and Susan J. Smith. Introduction, Author Meets Critics (Braun, Ley, Pratt, Kobayashi): Arun Saldanha’s Psychedelic white: goa trance and the viscosity of race to be published in Social and Cultural Geography (anticipated date). ISI Impact Factor 2006 0.855, rank 27/39
Angel, David et al. 1998. The drivers of greenhouse gas emissions: what do we learn from local case studies? Local Environment 3(3):263-277.
Slocum, Rachel and Barbara Thomas-Slayter. 1995: Participation, empowerment and sustainable development in Power, process and participation: tools for change. Rachel Slocum et al. (Eds.). London, Intermediate Technology Publications: 3-8.
Rocheleau, Dianne and Rachel Slocum. 1995. Participation in context: key questions in Power, process and participation: tools for change. Rachel Slocum et al. (Eds.). London, ITP: 17-30.
Book Reviews
2009. Review of Morgan, K., Marsden, T., and Murdoch, J. 2006. Worlds of food: Place, power, and provenance in the food chain. Oxford University Press, Oxford and Blay-Palmer A. 2008. Food Fears: From Industrial to Sustainable Food Systems. Ashgate, Aldershot, Hants for Environment and Planning A. (anticipated date)
2008. Review of
Anderson, Kay. 2007. Race
and the crisis
of humanism.
2003. Review of Portney, Kenneth. 2003. Taking sustainable cities seriously: economic development, the environment and quality of life in American cities. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. Environment and Planning A 35(10):1895.
2000. Review of Low, Nicholas et al. (eds.). 2000. Consuming cities: the urban environment in the global economy after the Rio Declaration. London, Routledge. Environment and Planning A 32(6):1138.
Other Writing
2006
Difference, power and community food: a report to respondents
(unpublished report)
2004 Cotton production and government payments, a report for Oxfam America (unpublished report)
GUEST PARTICIPATION
2008 Guest lecture, 'Race, bodies and alternative food geographies', Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
2008 Invited Participant, Research Directions in Sociology on Global Climate Change Workshop, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA
2008 Invited Participant, Food and Society: Gathering for Good Food, sponsored by The Kellogg Foundation, Chandler, AZ
2008 Discussant for Michael Brown’s paper for the Urban Geography Plenary, AAG, Boston,MA
2008
Chair,Food Environments III:Access and Race, AAG,
2007 Guest lecture, 'Geographies of race and food', University of Minnesota, Department of Geography, Minneapolis,MN
2006 Guest lecture, 'Geographies of race and food',St. Cloud State,Department of Geography, St.Cloud, MN
2006 Invited participant, presented'Theorizing race and food' at Eating Cultures: Race and Food, a research group, organized by Melanie DuPuis, University of California Humanities Research Institute, Irvine, CA
2007 Discussant,Food geographies II:Everyday Food, organized by Peter Jackson and Megan Blake, AAG,San Francisco, CA
2005 Whiteness and community food,Invited participant in 'White Food', a workshop organized by Julie Guthman and Melanie DuPuis, sponsored by the University of California, Santa Cruz, CA
2004 Guest lecture, 'Food, justice and society', and 'Climate Protection, Climate Politics' Department of Political Science, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA
2003
Guest lecture, 'Consumer citizens and the Cities for Climate Protection
campaign', Rutgers University,Graduate Student Association,Department
of Geography, Newark, NJ
CONFERENCE PAPERS and SESSIONS ORGANIZED
2008 Co-organizer with Susan J. Smith, Author Meets the Critics: Arun Saldanha's Psychedelic White:Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race, AAG Boston
2008 Corporeal feminism and political ecology,in Political Ecology of Bodies II,organized by Becky Mansfield and Julie Guthman, AAG, Boston, MA
2007 The embodied politics of pain in US anti-racism in Subaltern Cosmopolitanisms, organized by David Featherstone, 5th International Critical Geography Conference,Mumbai, Maharashtra
2007 Co-organizer with Julie Guthman, Geographies of Race and Food I and II,AAG, San Francisco
2007 Race at the market, in Geographies of Race and Food II: Bodies and Spaces,AAG, San Francisco
2006 At the market: feeling race and food, in Emotional Geographies of Rurality,organized by Jo Little, Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers, London
2006 Whiteness,space and alternate food practices, in Performing Alternative Economic Imaginaries: Governance, Ethics, and the Everyday Spaces of Responsibility organized by Trina Hamilton,AAG,Chicago, IL
2005
Shifting the balance of power? Anti-racist practice and cross
difference alliance in the community food movement, in Political and
Cultural Economies of Organic Food Supply Chains/Alternative Food
Networks, Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers,
Denver, CO
2002 Hungry polar bears and energy efficient light bulbs:toward a critical climate politics, Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Los Angeles, CA
2001 The climate politics of the Cities for Climate Protection campaign, Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, New York, NY
1999 Cities and climate change prevention, Annual Meeting of the Association of American, Geographers, Honolulu, HI
1996 Repositioning women on the landscape of the Office du Niger, Mali, Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Charlotte, NC
TEACHING
COURSES TAUGHT
Sustainable Cities (senior seminar, Holy Cross)Worlds of Food and Famine (senior seminar, Syracuse
Population Change (mid level, Syracuse
World Regional
Global Environmental Change (sophomores-seniors, Syracuse
Environment and Society (upper division and MA students, St. Cloud Sociology)
Environmental Citizenship (intro level, St. Cloud Sociology)
Social Inequality (mid level, St. Cloud Sociology)
TEACHING DEVELOPMENT AND
INNOVATION
Teaching
Strategies- Challenge students to excel in the development of their ideas through careful engagement with academic literature, written work and oral presentation;
- Balance accessibility with conceptual depth in choice of texts;
- Uphold a high standard and building students’ confidence in their abilities;
- Cover controversial ideas and current issues;
- Enable students to examine their presuppositions and to develop explanatory theories;
- Introduce students to the experiences of others whose lives may be quite different from their own;
- Encourage reflection on a student’s position in society;
- Build comprehension through class discussions and active engagement with students while lecturing;
- Allow students to arrive at an understanding using their own words and examples as the basis for conceptual understanding;
- Ensure that discussions enable all students the opportunity to speak and develop other means (email, online discussion groups, minute papers);
- Teach students how to base arguments in analysis of evidence, critical reasoning and the use of theoretical frameworks;
- Ensure that students know how to present orally in ways that quickly convey evidence, analysis and conclusions;
- Design assignments that build skills including:
- collection and use of primary data;
- recognition of the difference between peer and non-peer reviewed writing;
- ability to use peer-reviewed scholarship;
- capacity
to develop an argument through a paper.
- Peer reviews of my teaching, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006 (Syracuse University and St. Cloud State University
- Participation in Center for Teaching Excellence workshop: Transforming Student Writing, spring 2006, SCSU
- Participation in Center for Teaching Excellence workshop: Teaching Race, a session with Howard Winant, spring 2006, SCSU
- Participation in a faculty workshop concerning the development of online courses, fall 2008, SCSU
- Peer reviews of my teaching, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006 (Syracuse University and St. Cloud State University
- Participation in Center for Teaching Excellence workshop: Transforming Student Writing, spring 2006, SCSU
- Participation in Center for Teaching Excellence workshop: Teaching Race, a session with Howard Winant, spring 2006, SCSU
- Designed three new courses for the Sociology curriculum;
- Participated in the development of the General Education standards for St. Cloud State University for environmental modules;
- Used web-based program (Desire to Learn, similar to Blackboard) for all modules, allowing discussions, uploading of papers, timed quizzes, posting of readings etc.
- Used Skype from home to interact with students whose jobs and teaching schedule prevent them from coming to office hours;
- Encouraged students to write anonymous feedback and questions on index cards several times during the semester. I also use mid-semester evaluations if the course is new;
- Organized multiple field
trips to Minnesota Science Museum exhibit on Race produced by
the American Anthropological Association.
SERVICE
Service
to the Department, St.
Cloud State
University, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, 2005-08, Syracuse
University, 2001-03 and Clark University, 1995-98
- Faculty search committee, spring 2005, fall 2006, spring 2007, fall 2007
- Chair, faculty search committee, fall 200
- Wrote job announcement, screening forms, and interview questions
- Met with director of affirmative action and College Dean
- Department webmaster, 2007-fall 2008
- Added pages for fixed term faculty and included staff on a ‘People’ page; they had not been listed before
- Made program pages more accessible to students, added photos etc.
- Department curriculum committee, 2007
- Established a Sociology
intra-web share file of materials (syllabi,
films, readings) to support adjuncts teaching in Sociology at St. Cloud
State University
• Department regularly uses adjuncts to teach required courses. The file allows adjuncts to
make use of syllabi and other materials developed by or used by Department faculty. - Library Allocations Committee, 2007, 2008
- Outlined new course proposal procedures for the College of Social Sciences, 2007
- No detailed guide existed
for the steps necessary for new course
proposals and there was significant confusion about the process.
- Developed three new course
proposals (2006-07) to cultivate a
relationship with Women’s Studies and Geography (Gender,
space and
society) and to create an environmental focus in Sociology (Global
nature and Social dimensions of environmental change)
- College of Social Sciences Assessment Committee, 2006-2009
- Prepared reports to college on faculty assessment of Sociology courses
- Sociology Program Assessment committee, 2005-2009
- Devised 6 year timeline to assess whether the Sociology program is meeting its learning objectives associated with courses for the Sociology major and minor
- Advisor to Sociology and General Education majors
- Wrote letters of recommendation for Sociology majors
- Wrote a report for the Dean of the Maxwell School, Syracuse University, concerning adjunct faculty and changes that might be made to benefit the University and these staff.
- Wrote a guide for new faculty for the Department of Geography including frequently asked questions about housing, technical assistance, course details etc.
- Coordinator, Clark University Geographical Society (graduate student organization), 1996
- Organized colloquia and served on faculty review and search committees 1995-1998
Service to academic community: research grant refereeing
2008 NSF, Sociology, environmental social movements
2007 NSF, Sociology, health and climate change
2007 NSF, Geography, Career proposal
2006 NSF, Geography, racial disparities and toxics
2005 NSF, Geography, rural poverty
Service to academic community: journal refereeing
2009 Global Environmental Change, Antipode
2008 Emotion, Space and Society, Antipode, Environment and Planning A, Global Environmental Change, Social and Cultural Geography and the Annals of the Association of American Geographers
2007 Environment and Planning A
2003 Urban Studies
Service to alternative food and food justice communities
- Advisor to Sociology and General Education majors
- Wrote letters of recommendation for Sociology majors
- Wrote a report for the Dean of the Maxwell School, Syracuse University, concerning adjunct faculty and changes that might be made to benefit the University and these staff.
- Wrote a guide for new faculty for the Department of Geography including frequently asked questions about housing, technical assistance, course details etc.
- Participant, Home Grown Committee of the City of Minneapolis, 2009
- Providing recommendations to the city in support of farmers’ markets
- Member, Twin Cities food and justice coalition, 2008-2009
- Provided comments for Oxfam America’s paper Shut out: how US farm programs fail minority farmers in support of Oxfam’s efforts to reform the US Farm Bill, 2008
- Working with local food organizations to understand and address issues of social justice and particularly racial inequality in the food system
- Committee member, anti-racism committee within the US alternative food movement, 2003-05
MEMBERSHIP
Association
of American Geographers
Geographical Perspectives on Women
Specialty Group
Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty
Group
Diverse Economies Network
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Consultant, Oxfam America, US Program, Boston, MA, 2004
- Researched and wrote paper on government payments to cotton producers and the potential impact of effective payment limits
Consultant, Central New York Community Food System Coalition, Syracuse, NY, 2003-04
- Organized the core committee of the CNY CFSC and developed an inclusive vision, a statement of intent and a strategy to move forward
- Researched and wrote a proposal to encourage collaboration, secured funding and conducted outreach to potential coalition members to create a broad base
Trainer, Gender and Development Workshop, Promotion of Local Initiatives, GTZ, Mali, 1995
- Planned workshop, wrote case studies and presented gender sensitive tools to staff
- Researched and wrote UUSC publication, Gender Justice among other work
Consultant, Africare, Bamako, Mali, 1992
- Evaluated village level integrated pest management program and prepared report
Project Manager, sustainable livestock project for Tuareg nomads, Tahoua, Niger, 1992
- Wrote proposal, secured $10,000 grant for the Kel Aghrala, Tuareg for various small projects
Policy Analyst, Church World Service/Lutheran World Relief Office on Development Policy, Washington, DC, 1990-91
- Analyzed US foreign aid policy for Central America and Africa, planned advocacy strategy, wrote reports, lobbied Congressional staff and collaborated with NGO working groups
Peace Corps Volunteer, Small Enterprise Development/Agroforestry, Tahoua, Niger, 1987-89
- Implemented projects on fuel wood conservation, health and small enterprise development
- Learned the Hausa and French languages to communicate with government officials and villagers