Melissa W. Wright

Introduction

Melissa W. Wright  studies the dynamics linking political, cultural and economic processes. Her research is based primarily in Mexico and along the Mexico-U.S. border. She has also conducted fieldwork in southern China and in Hong Kong. Her research has focused on the emergence of an international social movement that protests violence against women along the Mexico-U.S. border. Another project has examined the meaning of citizenship in a transnational context. Her current project focuses on how violence in northern Mexico along with the federal militarization of urban space has affected public life along both sides of the Mexico-US border.

Research Interests

• political economy
• Mexico and Mexico-U.S. border
• social justice
• political and urban geography
• feminist studies

Education

• Ph.D. from Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, 1997
• B.A. Social Studies, Harvard-Radcliffe College, 1987

Advisees

• Destiny Aman, Ph.D. (current)

• Vanessa Massaro, Ph.D. (current)

• Dana Cuomo, Ph.D. (current)

• Melissa Rock, ABD, dissertation proposal, “Splintering Beijing: Socio-spatial Fragmentation, Commodification and Gentrification  in the Hutongs of ‘Old’ Beijing.”

• Beth Bee, ABD, dissertation proposal, “Gender, Adaptive Capacity and Cooperation in the Mezquital Valley, Mexico.”

• Anu Sabhlok, Ph.D. (2007): “SEWA in Relief: Gendered Geographies of Disaster Relief in Gujarat, India”

• Rafael Diaz, M.S. (2007): “Place Portrayal and Production of Space in American Professional Wrestling.”

• Dana Cuomo, M.S. (2007): “Borders, Bodies and Belonging: Sex Trafficking in the United States.”

• Beth Bee, M.S. (2006): “Financing Solidarity, Peddling Paradox: The Possibilities and Perils of a Feminist Geographic Approach to Microfinance in Bolivia.”

• Cindy Rampersad, M.S. (2003): “Identity and Spatial Segregation: Trinidadian Communities in New York City.”

Courses Taught

• GEOG 020
• GEOG 428Y
• GEOG 120

Publications

Refereed Books

• 2006    Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism.  New York and London: Routledge.

Refereed Edited Books

• 2010    Castree, N. ; Chatterton, P.; Heynen, N.;  Larner, W.; Wright, M.W. The Point Is To Change It: Geographies of Hope and Survival in an Age of Crisis. Wiley-Blackwell.

Articles and Book Chapters in Refereed Publications

• In Press.   “Necropolitics, Narcopolitics and Femicide: Gendered Violence on the Mexico-US Border.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.
• In Press.  “National Security versus Public Safety: Femicide, Drug Wars and the Mexican State.” In Accumulating Insecurity: A New Politics of Containment. S. Feldman, G. Menon and C. Geisler, editors. Athens: The University of Georgia Press. 
• In Press.   “Feminism and a Feeling of Justice.” Progress in Human Geography.
• 2010    "Gender and geography II: bridging the gap -- feminist, queer, and the geographical imaginary. " Progress in Human Geography  34 (2010): 56-66.
• 2009  "Justice and the Geographies of Moral Protest: Reflections from Mexico." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 27:  216 – 233.
• 2009   “Gender and Geography: Knowledge and Activism across the Intimately Global,” Progress in Human Geography, 33:  379-386.
• 2008     “El Lucro, La Democracia y la Mujer Pública: Haciendo las Conexiones,”(“Profit, Democracy and Public Women: Making the Connections”).  In Bordeando La Violencia Contra Las Mujeres en la Frontera Norte de México, S. Tabuenca and J. Monárrez, editors. Tijuana: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, 49-81. 
• 2008     “Craven Emotional Warriors.” Antipode 40, 376-382.
• Reprint: 2008 in Practising Public Scholarship, K. Mitchell, editor.  Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 29-35.
• 2007    “Urban Geography Plenary Lecture-- Femicide, Mother-activism and the Geography of Protest in Northern Mexico.” Urban Geography 28, 401-425.
• Reprint: Forthcoming, 2010. Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade and La Frontera. A. Gaspar de Alba and G. Guzmán, editors. Austin: The University of Texas Press.  
• 2006  “Differences That Matter.” In The David Harvey Reader, N. Castree and D. Gregory, editors. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.d
• 2006    “Field Note: Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 34, 94-97.

Editorials in Refereed Publications

• 2010    “Introduction: The Point is to Change It,” Castree, N. ; Chatterton, P.; Heynen, N.;  Larner, W.; Wright, M.W.  Antipode 41: 1–9.Reprint: 2010 in The Point is to Change It.  Castree, N. ; Chatterton, P.; Heynen, N.;  Larner, W.; Wright, M.W. , editors. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
• 2009     “The Power of Numbers.” Castree, N. and Wright, M.W., Antipode 41, 1-9.
• 2008     “In the Name of Democracy.” Antipode 40, 200-204.

Works in Progress

• Under review. In The Global and the Intimate. G. Pratt and V. Rosner, editors. New York:  “Witnessing, Femicide and a Politics of the Familiar.” New York: Columbia University Press.
• Antipode Plenary Lecture, RGS-IBG, London, 2010:  “Wars of Interpretation: Borders, violence and critical geography,” for submission to Antipode.

Book Reviews

• 2009    Growing up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children's Everyday Lives by Cindi Katz. Antipode 41: 1134 – 1137.
• 2009.   “Author response” in the review symposium of Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism by M.W. Wright. Social and Cultural Geography 10: 936 – 940.