Rachelle Berry
PhD, Geography, University of Georgia, Athens
MA, Geography, Syracuse University, Syracuse
B.A., Sociology and Gender, Ethnic, & Multicultural Studies, Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona
Research
Areas of Interest: Black Geographies, Critical Race Theory, Black Feminist Thought, Feminist Methods, and Urban Geography
Dr. Berry’s work is located at the intersection of Black Geographies, Critical Race Theory, and Urban Geography. Berry’s current project looks at a 1960s university-led urban renewal project that destroyed and displaced a 20-acre Black community to make way for student dormitories. Berry uses their expertise in community geography, scholar activism, and organizing to support Black communities seeking recognition and redress. They document this experience through autoethnographic methods that use story as an analytical device that shapes the material world. Their research shows how racial justice organizing creates opportunities for reparational justice, healing, transformation, and the rebuilding of Black Geographies.
Berry is also a founding member of the Athena Co-Learning Collective. They have published articles as a collective on building a more just classroom praxis and how to actively build feminist geographies in the classroom.
Publications
Athena Co-Learning Collective. (2021) “Toward Emergent Scholarship: Aligning Classroom Praxis with Liberatory Aims”. Antipode. Available at Antipode Online.
Rice, Jennifer L., Amy Trauger, Coleman Allums, Rachelle Berry, Shelly Biesel, Briana Bivens, Sara Black, Christina Crespo, Aspen Kemmerlin, Chelsea Wesnofske & The Athena Co- Learning Collective (2020) Rehumanizing the graduate seminar by embracing ambiguity: The Athena Co-Learning Collective, Gender, Place & Culture, 28(4): 564-575.
Athena Co-Learning Collective. (2018) “A Femifesto for Teaching and Learning Radical Geography”. Antipode. Available at: Antipode Online