Don Mitchell (born 1961) is Professor of Cultural Geography at

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance during ...

(since 2017) and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography in the

Maxwell School Maxwell School ( ms, Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Maxwell) is an all-boys secondary school, located north of Kuala Lumpur. The school is believed to be the oldest school in north of Kuala Lumpur as well as one of the oldest in Kuala Lumpur and ...

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

. From an academic household in California, he is a graduate of

San Diego State University San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) system ...

(1987),

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State becam ...

(1989) and received his Ph.D. from

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

in 1992, working with Neil Smith. He taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder before joining Syracuse in the late 1990s. In 1998, he became a

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

, and in 2008 a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

. He was awarded the ''Anders Retzius Medal'' from the

Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography The Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG; sv, Svenska Sällskapet för Antropologi och Geografi) is a scientific learned society founded in December 1877. It was established after a rearrangement of various sections of the Anthropo ...

in 2012.

Contributions

Considered an influential Marxist and radical scholar, he is best known for his work on cultural theory, showing how landscapes embody strong links to histories of struggle, oppression, and unacknowledged labor involved in their creation and maintenance. He has applied this to the history of immigrant labor in California's agricultural landscapes, public and privatized public spaces like shopping malls, and public parks where homeless people are threatened or evicte
People's Geography Project
He works on labor struggles, human rights and justice. He is also known for an editing technique, particular useful for book manuscripts or other long (10,000 words or more) texts, as well as for texts having undergone multiple revisions over a long period of time. The writer prints out the piece, rereads and makes edits, then retypes the entire text (except for block quotes, which can be pasted from a previous draft). The technique eliminates the incoherence resulting from cutting and pasting, and it compels the writer to reread, revise, and even eliminate prose that no longer works. This technique appears arduous but has the reputation of saving time over the long term. * Don Mitchell. 2020. '' "Mean Streets: Homelessness, Public Space, and the Limits of Capitalism.'' University of Georgia Press
Mean Streets review
* Don Mitchell. 2012. ''They Saved the Crops: Labor, Landscape, and the Struggle over Industrial Farming in Bracero-Era California.'' University of Georgia Press. *

Kenneth Olwig Kenneth Robert Olwig (born 1946) is an American-born landscape geographer, specializing in the study of the Scandinavian landscape. He is best known for advocating a "substantive" understanding landscape, one that incorporates legal and other lived ...

and Don Mitchell (eds.) 2009. ''Justice, Power and the Political Landscape'' London: Routledge. * Lynn Staeheli and Don Mitchell, 2008. ''The People’s Property? Power, Politics, and the Public''. New York: Routledge. * Don Mitchell. 2003. ''The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space''. * Don Mitchell. 2000. ''Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction''. Blackwell. * Don Mitchell. 1996. ''The Lie of the Land: Migrant Workers and the California Landscape''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

References

American geographers Syracuse University faculty MacArthur Fellows Living people 1961 births {{Geographer-stub