Professor
Graduate Program Director (Environmental Studies)
Credentials
PhD Urban Planning, University of California, Los Angeles
MA (Urban Planning), University of California, Los Angeles
BSc Landscape Architecture, Université de Montréal
Research Keywords
Cities, Urban Planning, Migration, Citizenship, Social and Environmental Justice.
Graduate Supervision
I supervise students in the graduate programs in Environmental Studies and Geography.

Contact Information
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
416 736 2100
https://www.liettegilbert.com/
Research Interests
Born and raised in rural Quebec along the US border, my research interest extends to large cities and borders politics. My scholarship has developed around three poles: i) migration and border politics; ii) urban planning and the political economy and ecology of sub/urbanization; and iii) politics of risk and post-disaster reconstruction (as a tragic train derailment took my research back to my home region of Lac-Mégantic). These research areas are framed by a politics of inclusion/exclusion. I am particularly interested in how the logic of exclusion reproduces itself through control, precarity, risk and crisis discourses.At the core of these regimes and discourses are issues of incapacitation of everyday life, citizenship and ‘right to the city.’
More specifically, my research examines how migration control has increasingly expanded away from the border through neoliberal strategies of incapacitation, deterrence and detention, as a way not only to penalize border crossing but also to criminalize everyday practices of many migrants. My work related to cities (from Mexico City to Lac-Mégantic) looks at the entanglement of capitalist urban development, governance and resistance/activism in both normalized and ‘exceptional’ (post-disaster) agendas. My research and teaching are motivated for needed change towards environmental and social justice.
Research Projects
Research Output
Recognition & Awards
- FES Dean's Service Award (shared with Tarmo Remmel)
Courses
Not currently teaching, but recent courses included:
Course Code | Title |
---|---|
ENVS 5100 | Interdisciplinary Research in Environmental Studies |
ENVS 8103 | PhD Research Design Workshop |
ENVS 4750 | Political Ecology of Landscapes |
ENVS 6133 | Social Justice and Planning |
ENVS 8102 | PhD Research Seminar |
ENVS 8102 | PhD Research Seminar (Dissertation Proposal) |
GEOG 5010 | Seminar in Geographical Practice. |