Rachel Smith
LAWYER & CONSULTANT
Phone:
123-456-7890
Email:
Address:
500 Terry Francois Street
San Francisco, CA 94158
Date of Birth:
March 14th, 1984
My research explores globalization, class/race/gender/identity, othering, and violence. I look at these processes in the urban contexts of the Global North and Global South.
My most recent (November 2022) conversation on diversity, identity politics, hate, love, conflict and peace for The Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability (FOGGS) as a guest for the two-part interview session for the Global Citizen podcast can be found here:
Part 1:
Part 2:
My most recent book came out in May 2021 and is titled: The Alt-Right Movement: Dissecting racism, patriarchy, and anti-immigrant xenophobia,
Sage.
Winner of EXCELLENCE in BOOK PRODUCTION AWARD 2021, FIP (Federation of Indian Publishers)
The book explores the fervent wave of racism, misogyny, and anti-immigrant xenophobia sweeping all over Europe and the U.S., an intellectual introspection of the right is no longer avoidable, and the onus is on us to understand why despite the prevalence of hunger, exploitation, poverty, and inequality that should have been the fuel for a left political revolution, there is actually the opposite, the rise of extreme right fascism manifested as religious bigotry, racism, sexism, anti-immigrant xenophobia. I started following the Alt-Right in the underbellies of the internet as it is largely an internet based extreme right political movement. What was a cursory interest became the template for the book. This book explores how the Alt-Right views its own identity, what kind of identity violations it claims to address? Who they identify as “others?” The philosophical essence of the Alt-Right is about reclaiming the colonial zeal for voyaging and building civilizations, and demanding a white “ethno-state.” The Alt-Right attacks feminism, demonstrates hatred for racial minorities, non-white immigrants and Muslims. One conceptual claim of this book is that while the Alt-Right attacks liberal philosophy of multiculturalism and affirmation of diversity, yet it constructs an inverted form of multiculturalism that is based on the affirmation of white supremacist identity and a fervent claim for recognition of ‘whiteness’ as diverse-in-itself. The book argues that what makes acceptable differences distinct from unacceptable differences (patriarchy, racism, classism, imperialism) is the gory history of exploitation. The hegemon that unleashes the violence of inequality cannot claim acceptability at any stage in history and at any site in geography, there is nothing fluid, porous, or contingent about that. Both liberal-philosophy and Alt-Right’s ideo-epistemological praxis remain conjoined rather than becoming a probing critique of each other because of the uncritical celebration of difference and liberal identity politics’ inability to clearly distinguish the oppressor from the oppressed. Whether the Alt-Right realizes it or not, it is the golden child of liberal individualism.
My 2016 book: Spectacular Cities, Oxford compares cities in India with cities in the US to understand how globalization is differently inscribed in different places. In the US, I look at migration, memory-making, nostalgia, and racial narratives are produced in Hindu temple complexes in Irving-Dallas, Atlanta, and Houston. In the Indian context, I examine how globalization presents itself as theme park/Disney World within temple complexes in Delhi and Ghandinagar that are now replete with sacred sound and light shows, Vedic boat rides, mythical dioramas. This book has been reviewed in Economic and Political Weekly, Polymath: An International Arts and Science Journal.
My first book: Displacement, Revolution, and the New Urban Condition (2014 ,Sage) is about the riverfront revitalization and the politics associated with displacement and rehabilitation of urban poor in India. The book is an ethnographic exploration of neoliberal urban revitalization in India conceptually re-informing urban theories of gentrification, urban renewal, and new urban politics. Using interviews of city government officials and the displaced, I re-construct how displacement politics is fraught with tensions between class, religiosity, profit, and well-being. I attempt to conceptualize exploitation as displacement and re-settlement as plebianization and offer a narrative of urban resistance of the poor that problematizes urban revolution. This book has been reviewed in DAWN (Pakistani daily), The Hindu (Indian daily), Economic and Political Weekly, Human Geography, International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Social Action, Interventions, South Asia and the Himalayas, Social Change.
My past research includes an excavation of Marxist concepts of class, class consciousness and exploitation to re-conceptualize how they may provide an understanding of reality in the post-industrial Global North and Global South. In other words, if the mills are no more, who is the proletariat? How class 'eventuates' in the context of outsourcing and de-industrialization and how class intersects with gender, ethnicity, race to produce contexts of empowerment or dis-empowerment. I have also explored Hindu-Muslim violence in Indian cities and have compared them to French riots and marginalization of immigrants in Parisian suburbs.
I edit Human Geography: A New Radical journal that is committed towards social relevance in research, pedagogy and praxis. All editors of the journal work tirelessly for no salary or perks, but because of our unified commitment for a better society. We use all parts of the share of our profit for multiple grants given annually to students and junior faculty for socially relevant research. Although we are in partnership with Sage, we have a unique contract, which allows us to own and distribute large parts of the profits of our intellectual labor under the "Institute of Human Geography" banner.
I am inspired by Marxist, post-Marxist, and feminist critique of capitalism. Concepts of class, identity, gender, race, exploitation, alienation from nature, commodification/individualism, and dialectical materialist philosophy form the conceptual template of my work. I am a radical geographer and I believe that my research and teaching must illuminate conditions and processes affecting the poor, minority, labor, and women so that we can intellectually imagine a socially just world. Social Justice is not an option, nor can it be acquired piecemeal, it is all encompassing discursive-material necessity that we must all work towards.
EXPERIENCE
2016 Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University North Texas
2013 to 2016 Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University of North Texas
2013 to present Affiliated faculty in Women’s Studies Program, University of North Texas
2009-2013 Assistant Professor, Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin.
2009-2013 Affiliated faculty in South Asia Institute, University of Texas at Austin
Fall 2010 Interim Chair, Urban Studies Program, Department of Geography and Environment, UT Austin
2007-2009 Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University
EDUCATION
2007: PhD. in Geography, Clark University, Massachusetts, USA.
2002: Master of Philosophy in Geography, CSRD, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India.
2000: Master of Arts in Geography, CSRD, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India.
1998: Bachelor of Science in Geography with Honors, University of Calcutta, Loreto College, India.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Editorship:
Editor: Human Geography. The journal advances radical, critical, liberatory, leftist, social and/or environmental justice scholarship.
2024-27: Editorial Board, Annals of the American Association of Geographers
2019-present: Vice President: Institute of Human Geography. Institute of HG is affiliated with the journal of
Human Geography that annually awards multiple research grants to scholars globally.
2018-present: Editorial Board member of Caste: A global journal of social exclusion.
2018-2023: Member of the Editorial collective of Review of Radical Political Economy.
Books:
Funke, J., Chatterjee, I., Ahmed, W., McCauley, S. (forthcoming, 2024) Geography in the 21st Century: Conflicts and disasters that shaped society. ABC: CLIO.
Chatterjee, I. (2021) The Alt-Right Movement: Dissecting racism, patriarchy, and anti-immigrant xenophobia,
Sage.
Chatterjee, I. (2016) Spectacular Cities: Religion, Landscapes and the dialectics of Globalization, Oxford University press.
Chatterjee, I. (2014). Displacement, Revolution, and the New Urban Condition. Delhi, London, New York: Sage.
Articles:
Chatterjee, I. (2024, forthcoming) Marxism and Geography. In Encyclopedia of Human Geography, eds. B. Warf Spinger.
Chatterjee, I. (2023) Quintessence of Urban India: Musings about social change but not limited to it. In Social Change Vol.53(2) June: 256-274.
Chatterjee, I. (2023) Marx’s ‘species being’ as an ontological revolution against the ‘green city/global city’ agenda: Two possible moments of reclaiming ‘species life. In Capitalism, Nature Socialism Vol 34(4), pp 78-96.
Chatterjee, I. (2023) Roll on That Day: A Dialectical Poetry. Phil O’ Keefe symposium. Human Geography 16(1),
pp.109-112.
Chatterjee, I. (2023) First conversation. Human Geography, 16(1), pp.98-101.
Chatterjee, I. (2022) The Muslim: Islamophobia as Disembodiment. In Journal of Culture and Religion.
Chatterjee, I. (2022) Marx lies Within. Human Geography, 15.1, pp 90-101. Special Issue: Marxist Geography.
Chatterjee, I. and Ahmed, W., 2019. Dialectical materialism: Marx's method in human geography? ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 18(2).
Ahmed, W. & Chatterjee, I (2016) Antinomies of the Indian State. In Handbook of Critical Political Economy, eds. A. Cafruny, L. Talani & G. Pozo. Palgrave MacMillan.
Chatterjee, I. (2015) Beyond the Factory: Struggling with Class and Class Struggle in the Post-industrial Context in Capital and Class.
Chatterjee, I. (2013) Social Conflict and the Neoliberal City: A case of Hindu-Muslim violence in India. In G. Shatkin (Ed.) Contesting the Indian City: Global Vision and the Politics of the Local. Blackwell (This is a modified reprint).
Ahmed, W. and Chatterjee, I. (2013) Contradictory policies of neoliberalizing India, Human Geography, vol. 6(2), pp.85-97.
Chatterjee, I. (2012) Feminism, the False Consciousness of Neoliberal Capitalism? in Gender, Place and Culture vol. 19(6), December, pp.790-809.
Chatterjee, I. (2012) How are they othered? Globalization, Identity and Violence in an Indian city in The Geographical Journal, Vol. 178(2), June, pp. 134-146.
Chatterjee, I. (2011) Identifying Class and Classifying Identity in Understanding Violence in France and Ahmedabad in ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies vol. 10 (2), pp.232-253.
Chatterjee, I. (2011) Governance as ‘Performed,’ Governance as ‘Inscribed’: New Urban Politics in Ahmedabad. Urban Studies vol. 48(12) September, pp. 2571-2590.
Chatterjee, I. (2010) Globalization and the Production of Difference: A case study of Neoliberal production of Hindu Nationalism in India. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol. 30(3), pp. 621-632.
Chatterjee, I. (2009) Violent Morphologies: Landscape, border and scale in Ahmedabad conflict. Geoforum, Vol.40 (6), November, pp. 103-113.
Chatterjee, I. (2009) Deconstructing Vegas: A Class Project? Human Geography, Vol.2 (2), pp83-85.
Chatterjee, I. (2009) Social Conflict and the Neoliberal City: A case of Hindu-Muslim violence in India. In Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers vol. 34, Issue 2, pp143-160.
Chatterjee, I. (2008) Method in the Madness: A Social Justice Manifesto for Conflict Analysis. Human Geography, vol. 1(2), pp72-83.
Chatterjee, I. (2007). Packaging of identity and identifiable packages: A case study of women-commodity negotiation through product packaging. Gender Place and Culture, vol.14 (3), pp.293-316.
Chatterjee, I. (2006). Applying Models of Conflict Negotiation to the Hindu-Muslim conflict in Ahmedabad, India: Implications and Lessons. International Journal of Conflict Management, vol. 17 (2) pp.154-174.
Special Issue of journal edited:
Baiman, R., Chatterjee, I., Pradella, L., Munck, R., Salas, C., Wilson, T.D. (2020). Special issue: Informal and Precarious work in Review of Radical Political Economy vol. 52(3), September 1.
Book Chapters:
Chatterjee, I. (2024, forthcoming) Rohingya refugee crisis. In Geography in the 21st Century: Conflicts and disasters that shaped society. ABC:CLIO.
Chatterjee, I. (2022) From Species life to Nature’s outside: New Town ‘Green City,’ Kolkata. In The Routledge Handbook of Development and Environment. Routledge.
Chatterjee, I. (2021) From Species life to Nature’s outside: New Town ‘Green City,’ Kolkata. In The Routledge Handbook of Development and Environment edited by McCusker, b., Ahmed, W., Ramutsindela, M., and Solis, P. Routledge: London, New York.
Chatterjee, I. (2020) Overcoming the Limits of Theory: Conceptual musings on displacement in Beyond Housing Displacement: Conceptual and methodological issues edited by Beaten, G., Persdotter, M., Pul, E., Listerborn, C. Routledge.
Chatterjee, I. (2019): Radical Globalization in Keywords in Radical Geographical Thought. Antipode 50th Anniversary Collection.
Pomeroy, George; Chatterjee, I, Dutt, Ashok K. (2016) “Cities of South Asia” in textbook titled: Cities of the World edited by Stanley Brunn, Maureen Hays-Mitchell and Don Zeigler, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers (this is a modified reprint).
Chatterjee, I.; Pomeroy, George; Dutt, Ashok K. (2012) “Cities of South Asia” in textbook titled: Cities of the World edited by Stanley Brunn, Maureen Hays-Mitchell and Don Zeigler, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Peet, R., Chatterjee, I. and Hartwick, E. (2011) Making sense of globalization. In Roger Lee, Linda McDowell, Peter Sunley, and Andrew Leyshon (Eds.) Compendium of Economic Geography. Los Angeles, London: Sage Publications, pp75-88. ISBN978-1-84860-7 ISBN 978-1-84860-115-4 (pbk).
Chatterjee, I. (2010) From Red Tape to Red Carpet? Violent narratives of neoliberalizing Ahmedabad. In Waquar Ahmed, Richard Peet, Amitabha Kundu (Eds.) New Economic Policy in India. UK: Routledge, pp154-178. ISBN13: 978-0-415-80188-1 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-84681-0 (ebk).
COURSES TAUGHT
Globalization, Conflict, Resistance (Graduate Seminar)
Political Geography (Undergraduate)
Urban Geography (Graduate/Undergraduate)
Culture, Environment, Society (Introduction to human geography, undergraduate)
Global Societies (Undergraduate)
City, Space, and Power (Undergraduate)
This Human World (Undergraduate)
Women, Ideas, and Society (Undergraduate)
Cultural Geography (Undergraduate)
Geography of International Affairs (Undergraduate)
Geographies of Globalization (Undergraduate)