EUC Global Connection – Mexico
The Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change brings together geographers, physical scientists, social scientists, humanities researchers and artists whose innovative research seeks to advance sustainability and social justice. Using field-based science, policy analysis, critical social theory, planning skills, geomatics, and cultural and arts-based approaches, our researchers drive action to address the world’s environmental and urban challenges.
EUC researchers are engaged in collaborative relationships, projects and partnerships with colleagues and institutions around the world. Here are the works we have been doing in Mexico.
EUC Main Researchers in Mexico
EUC Main Partner Institutions in Mexico
EUC Research in Mexico
Liette Gilbert
Professor Liette Gilbert’s involvement with collaborators in Mexico City dates back almost two decades. It started through work with a team at CISAN (Center for Research on North America) at UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) in Mexico City, which provided multiple collaborations and opportunities for presentations and publications on migration and national identity – particularly in their own journal — NorteAmérica Revista Académica del CISAN-UNAM. Gilbert has also collaborated with a team working on continental integration and border governance at the Universidad IberoAmericana Ciudad de México. In 2016, Gilbert spent a sabbatical year affiliated with the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Cuajimalpa, conducting research as part of the CITY Institute’s Global Suburbanisms project (headed by Dr. Roger Keil). Her research investigated the complex suburban expressions of this megapolitan region, in collaboration with independent researcher/journalist Feike de Jong. More recently, Gilbert’s collaboration with the avant-garde 17, Instituto de Estudios Críticos (self-described as a post-university with a focus on digital pedagogy) led to a panel presentation co-organized with the CITY Institute’s director Dr. Luisa Sotomayor on mega-urban realities.
Anna Zalik
Professor Anna Zalik’s scholarly research in Mexico began in 2001 on the Mexican Gulf Coast (in Tabasco, Veracruz and Campeche states), following her previous work in the NGO sector elsewhere in the country. Her research examines the oil state and the means through which private and parastatal firms manage tensions in major sites of oil and gas infrastructure. Over the past decade her work in Mexico has shifted to studying the political economy and geopolitics of US and Canadian projects and investments in the restructured Mexican energy sector, including with relation to large pipeline projects in the Gulf region as well as in Northern Puebla and Hidalgo. This work has been conducted with colleagues at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH) as well as organizations affected by these infrastructural projects. Professor Zalik has been invited as a keynote speaker on these topics at various Mexican academic institutions, including the UNAM and the Universidad Veracruzana.
In 2024, Zalik collaborated with Aleida Hernandez Cervantes (UNAM) to design and teach a joint field course on CUSMA/NAFTA titled, “Free Trade, Unfree Labour and Environmental Justice in Continental North America.” The course was taken by students from both York University and UNAM who learned about the practical implications of a continental free trade agreement through immersive experiences in Southern Ontario and Central Mexico. Professor Zalik was invited as an expert witness to the Canadian Parliamentary Standing Committee on International Trade in 2024 on the Canada US Mexico agreement review process.
Emerita Deb Barndt’s
Since 2015, Professor Emerita Deb Barndt’s Earth to Tables Legacies project has brought together food activists from Canada and Mexico to exchange around food justice and food sovereignty. The project’s website, audiovisual output and numerous publications have included a multimedia educational package for use by teachers and activists.
Student Connections
Students have also been an important part of EUC’s relationship with Mexico. In 2016, Guillermo Martínez De Velasco conducted an MES research project titled, “A Materialist Acoustemology of Urban Atmospheres in Mexico City’s Centro Histórico,” capturing the sounds and experiences of everyday interactions in the context of recent urban regeneration. Dr. Tania Hernandez Cervantes completed her PhD dissertation in Environmental Studies titled, Reconnecting the city and the countryside with food and agriculture in the era of globalization and Neoliberalism: Nopal, Mexico City and Milpa Alta, under the supervision of Professor Rod MacRae in 2017. Tania is now back in Mexico working for the Chamber of Deputies. Linn Biorklund Belliveau completed a PhD in Geography titled, Geographies of violence and contestation across borders: Everyday politics of migrant women at the Mexico-Guatemala U.S. proxy border, supervised by Jennifer Hyndman. Linn’s work emerged from years of working with displaced communities and non-governmental organizations in Mexico, Central America, and other parts of the world. Currently, Luisa Regina Anota Guzman, a student from Mexico who completed her Bachelor of Environmental Studies at EUC, is continuing her education in the Master of Environmental Studies program. Her research focuses on sustainability transitions in the Global South, including Mexico.
