My introduction into what I would later recognize as geography came by way of my work in international affairs and Latin American studies – an interdisciplinary grab bag of economic, history, and political science classes.  I first became interested in Latin America when I took an upper level Latin American history course as an undergraduate.  The links – sometimes voluntary, sometimes forced – that existed (and still exist today) between the United States and Latin American countries fascinated me. Why would the US be so insistent on having a hand in Latin American foreign affairs?  I quickly learned that scholars from a mix of disciplines spend their careers answering this question and decided to add myself to the pool of Latin Americanists. 

My initiation into the field began with questioning the political economic context based on the Washington Consensus of the 1990s.  The transformation of the consensus into neo-liberal policies has produced a controversial political economic environment.  What alternatives to the paradigm of mainstream development do countries in Latin America have today?  My research pulls from works on diverse economy (Gibson-Graham 2006), livelihoods (Bebbington 2000), and place (Harner 2001) that offer different perspectives on sustainable development for making these inquiries.  Place is the core concept in my work and emphasizes to me the importance of fieldwork in geographical research.  As a concept, it encompasses the tangible processes of political economy and networks that occur everyday in a local environment.

My endeavors focus on Mexico – specifically its northern borderlands region – and encompass four main areas of interest.  First, I investigate how cross-border networks transform over time between towns situated at the border.  This body of work focuses on communities in southern New Mexico and northern Chihuahua.  It delves into the current contested cross-border practices and contemplates whether or not links across the border that existed in the past will continue into the future.  Second, I explore how Mexican or Mexican American shuttle bus companies in Phoenix establish physical cross-border links to places in Mexico and enable Mexicans and Mexican Americans to maintain social ties across the border.  Third, I research cultural landscape change in northern Sonora towns.  My recent collaborative work on cultural landscapes utilized comparative field methods, repeat photography and map analysis, to inquire into social and economic changes in Puerto Peñasco and Huépac, Sonora.  Fourth, I examine how livelihoods sustain rural communities in northern Sonora.  This is my latest work that draws from concepts of resilience and sustainable development, and specifically looks at the ranching and agricultural community in Banámichi, Sonora.

Fieldwork is the foundation of my research and draws on qualitative methods that include landscape observation, participant observation, and interviewing. I adhere to an inductive approach that results in rich, in-depth analysis of local level processes and reveals place-based nuances. I believe that local-level detail is essential information for regional analysis.  It informs policies at the state and national levels and assesses why certain processes occur in one place and not the other.  Network analysis and cartography mesh well with these methods.  Pulling details from interviews and integrating them into nodal network analysis and maps connects the zoomed in detail of a place to a broader assessment.  I have landed my research at this innovative intersection by linking qualitative field methods to geovisualization. In doing so, I keep current on research using these techniques and integrate these mixed methods to yield applicable results in my work.