Joe Pierce
I am an urban geographer based in Worcester, Mass.
I position my work between critiques of neoliberalism and a poststructuralist view of how place-based communities emerge.
Place
Building on the work of Martin, Harvey, Merrifield, Massey, etc., I use theories of place and place-making as my primary lens for understanding how urban residents and users construct themselves into communities-in-space. The process of framing onesself into different urban places is a complex one, and I argue that identifying the multiple simultaneous place-frames being promoted and contested is critical to understanding how "urban politics" are made specific and embedded.
Neoliberalism
In certain circles, the wraith of neoliberalism has become a catchphrase for nearly all that ails society. Notwithstanding concerns about its overuse, however, the critique of neoliberal development offers a vocabulary to describe how ongoing economic restructuring has created an increasingly hostile environment for those who are not already economically empowered. I take a skeptical but ultimately sympathetic view of much of this literature: it helps to productively frame both the ways that North American cities are evolving and also their engagement in the global network of production and economic "command and control."
Scale
The analytical problematic of scale is a central theme in geography; however, we have not "solved" it so much as identified the challenge of resolving it in quite varied contexts. For questions of urban ecology and urban economic systems, scale offers an ongoing analytical challenge: how do we choose scales of analysis? How do we reconcile competing "best practices" and "optimal outcomes" at different scales? And, perhaps most importantly, how do concerns about urban justice (environmental or otherwise) play into policy implementation at neighborhood, urban, or urban-regional scales?