About my work

About me

I recently completed my PhD in Geography (with minor in Gender and Women's Studies and a College Teaching Certificate) in the School of Geography, Development, and Environment at the University of Arizona. I am a critical human/human-environment geographer with wide-ranging interests. My major areas of research and writing include:

What I am working on now (Fall 2023)

Critical Phenomenology Now! 

I am writing a book about critical phenomenology. Critical phenomenology is a body of thought that revises and builds upon the phenomenological tradition to account for how gender, race, sexuality, disability, and other forms of social difference shape our worlds and our experience of them. Critical phenomenology provides a sharp language for diagnosing the operations of racism, sexism, transphobia, and other forms of oppression and how they become naturalized in perception and in space. I draw on ordinary, though disorienting, experiences in my everyday life as a trans person – going to the bathroom, passing through the airport, inhabiting my professional spaces – to open up fundamental philosophical questions about space, embodiment, power, violence, and perception.

>> I am now doing talks on this book project. If you'd like me to speak in your department or elsewhere, please get in touch! 

Queering Feminist Geography Collective

I am convening a working group of geographers and friends that focuses on the place of queer and trans people in feminist geography. We are collectively authoring interventions on the themes of (1) queer inclusion, exclusion, and belonging in feminist geography, (2) feminist transphobia, (3) how cis/het feminist geographers can be allies, and (4) queer/trans-feminist coalition. We also have a monthly general meeting anyone can join to network, dialogue, and learn about these topics.

>> If you'd like to join any of these activities or learn more, please get in touch!

Teaching more critical and inclusive histories of geography

I am convening a working group of geographers to rethink how we narrate and teach the history of geography to account for historical and persistent forms of racism, coloniality, sexism, whiteness, etc. in the discipline. We are working a publication on this subject. 


Read on for more information about these various areas of my research and writing. Or check out my publications page to see what I've been up to. 

If you take an interest in any of this work, please don't hesitate to reach out. You can follow me on Twitter (@queergeog) or send me a message (ekinkaid at email dot arizona dot edu), if you want to chat, share your work, or just say hello!

Social media

@queergeog

Twitter: academic account

Instagram: art account

@WTFisGeography

Twitter threads offering brief definitions of geography's big words.

@youarehereUA

Account for you are here: the journal of creative geography and other creative geographies content.

Food and agriculture, place, and development

Beyond just food: Food justice, development, and place-making in a UNESCO City of Gastronomy

My dissertation examines the cultural politics and the political economy of gastrodevelopment – a term that describes how cities are increasingly turning to food culture as a motor for economic development. I examine this broader topic through fieldwork in Tucson, Arizona, which was the first city in the US to gain recognition as a UNESCO City of Gastronomy. This is a designation that recognizes the unique agricultural and food heritage of the region and is also meant to leverage food culture as a means of sustainable development in cities around the world. I examine how food culture is being used as a means of economic development in Tucson and who can claim the value produced through the celebration and commodification of food heritage.

Supported by the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences Summer Dissertation Fellowship.

Becoming an organic state: Shifting landscapes of agricultural governance in north India

My original field-based dissertation research (postponed due to COVID-19) examines the growth of organic certification in Uttarakhand, India and its impacts on smallholder farmers in the region. Uttarakhand is one among several Indian states that aspires to become an "organic state" in the next decade through a complete conversion to organic agriculture. In this context, I am interested in how farmers narrate processes of agrarian change and its embodied impacts in the long wake of the Green Revolution and amidst a turn toward organic farming in the state. 

See my recent publication based on this work: Embodied political ecology: Sensing agrarian change in north India.

Supported by The National Science Foundation and Fulbright Program.

Building food system resilience: COVID-19's impacts on southern Arizona's food system

This collaborative project examines the impacts of COVID-19 on the local food system of southern Arizona. The study consists of a survey with food producers; interviews with food producers, distributors, and food system organizations; and focus groups with food system actors. The aim of the project is to document the impacts of the pandemic on southern Arizona's food system, derive lessons from these disruptions, and support the development of a more resilient local food system.

View our public report on the impacts of COVID-19 on southern Arizona's food system.

Read our op-ed on COVID-19's impacts on farming and the need for agricultural workforce development.

Supported by The American Geographical Society, The Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, and The Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute at the University of Arizona.


Social difference and geographic theory

The ontological turn

I have strong theoretical interests in a number of contemporary strands of post-structuralist and ontological turn thinking in geography, namely assemblage thinking and post-phenomenology. I seek to bring these emerging geographical perspectives into deeper engagement with their philosophical roots while making them accountable to feminist and queer perspectives.

See my publications for more details.

Feminist, queer trans geographies

Drawing on queer and feminist theory, I examine the social and spatial dimensions of (queer) gender and sexuality, alongside other forms of embodied difference. I also seek to make feminist geographies more inclusive of and responsive to the experiences of queer and trans people. 

See my publications for more details.


Critical phenomenology

I engage the phenomenological tradition within and outside of geography. I've published work on the history of phenomenology in geography, a phenomenological reading of Lefebvre, and critiques of contemporary revisions of phenomenology. I seek to introduce a "critical phenomenology" into geography. 

See my publications for more details.


Diversity, equity, and inclusion in geography

The place of queer and trans people in geography

Lately, I have been thinking and writing about the place of queer and trans people in the discipline of geography. My writing on these themes highlights how queer and trans people seem to stand outside of our imaginaries of our discipline, its identity, and its spaces. I also am thinking through the place of queer and trans people in feminist geographies, specifically in relation to feminist ethics of care. Stay tuned for forthcoming publications and presentations on these topics. 

Exclusions of geography curriculum

I recently conducted a study on how graduate "introduction to geography" seminars represent issues of race, gender, and colonialism in their narrations of geography's history. You can check that paper out by visiting my publications page.

Creative geographies

Editor of you are here: the journal of creative geography

Since 2020, I have served as editor/coeditor of you are here: the journal of creative geography, an annual multigenre and interdisciplinary journal exploring the intersections of art and geography. Learn more about my editorial and curatorial work.

My art deals with themes of queer and trans embodiment, subjectivity, space, and transformation. Check out my projects here. 

During 2022, I am participating in the School of New Art Geographies residency, which explores the intersection of art and ecology.