Araby Smyth
Biography
I am a feminist economic and urban geographer. Prior to Mount Allison University, I worked as a Post-Doctoral Visitor on the SSHRC funded GenUrb Project at the City Institute of York University in Toronto. My research on debt, remittance economies, and decolonizing knowledge production has been funded by the Antipode Foundation, National Science Foundation (USA), and Society of Woman Geographers. I have published in journals such as Antipode, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, and Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, and I am on the Editorial Collective of ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies.
Publications
Smyth A. 2024. 'Feminist Approaches to Debt in the City.' In Peake L, Adeniyi-Ogunyankin G and Datta A (eds) Handbook on Gender and Cities (pp 274-283). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Peake L, Razavi N S and Smyth A (eds). 2024. 'Doing Feminist Urban Research: Insights from the GenUrb Project.' London: Routledge.
Smyth A. 2024. 'Making Futures in Oaxaca: Remittances in the Diverse Economies of Social Reproduction.' Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 49(2): 1-13. 10.1111/tran.12659
Smyth A. 2023. 'Proceeding through Colonial Past-presents in Fieldwork: Methodological Lessons on Accountability, Refusal, and Autonomy.' Antipode 55(1): 268-285.
Smyth A. 2022. 'Challenging the Financialization of Remittances Agenda through Indigenous Women’s Practices in Oaxaca.' Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 54(4): 761-778. 10.1177/0308518X20977186
Linz J and Smyth A. 2021. 'The Feminist Coven at University of Kentucky.' In Gökarıksel B, Hawkins M, Neubert C and Smith S (eds) Feminist Geography Unbound: Intimacy, Territory, and Embodied Power (pp 263-267). Morgantown: West Virginia University Press.
Smyth A, Linz J and Hudson L. 2020. A Feminist Coven in the University. Gender, Place & Culture 27(6): 854-880. 10.1080/0966369X.2019.1681367
Smyth A. 2017. 'Re-Reading Remittances through Solidarity: Mexican Hometown Associations in New York City.' Geoforum 85 (October): 12–19. 10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.06.025
Education
- 2021 Doctor of Philosophy in Geography, University of Kentucky
- 2015 Masters of Arts in Geography, Hunter College of the City University of New York
- 2015 Certificate of Geographic Information Science, Hunter College of the City University of New York
- 2006 Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Hunter College of the City University of New York
Teaching
- GENV 1201 The Human Environment
- GENV 2221 The Developing World
- GENV 3701 Research Methods in Human Geography and Environment
- GENV 3831 Gography of Global Cities
- GENV 3991 Geographies of Finance
Research
My research agenda responds to the global challenge of building inclusive economies by examining how the financialization of debt and remittances are creating precarity in the lives of women living in areas characterized by under-development. To do this I draw upon anti- and decolonial frameworks in feminist, Black, Latin American, and Indigenous studies, economic geography, and political economy to analyze the finance industry and community social relations that nurture collective life and refuse capitalist expectations. The goal of my next major research project, Expanded Extractivism: Debt, Remittances and the Finance Industry, is to understand how the finance industry perpetuates precarity among
transnational families that share remittances between Canada, the USA, and Mexico.
I am also co-investigator on the Antipode Foundation funded project Beyond Esri: Moving Toward Abolition in Geography. Esri is the global market leader in software for geospatial analysis and as such it is ubiquitous in geography education as well as policing and surveillance. Our research challenges the ways in which geography is implicated in carcerality through its strong ties to Esri, and provides examples of how geographers can divest from law enforcement, and incorporate abolition in research and teaching.
Grants, awards & honours
| 2024/2023 | Exchange Conference Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council |
| 2023 | Nominee for a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Department of Geography & Planning and Faulty of Arts & Science, University of Toronto |
| 2023 | "Right to the Discipline" Grant, Antipode Foundation |
| 2022 | Outstanding Teaching Award, College of Arts & Sciences, University of Kentucky |
| 2019 | Scholar Award, Philanthropic Educational Organization |
| 2018 | Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award (#1833226), National Sciences Foundation Geography and Spatial Sciences Program |
| 2018 | Evelyn L. Puitt National Fellowship for Dissertation Research Society of Woman Geographers |
| 2015 | Miriam and Saul B. Cohen Prize for Geographic Excellence, Department of Geography, Hunter College of the City University of New York |