Juanita Sundberg

Associate Professor, Department of Geography, The University of British Columbia
Woman smiling at the camera
Pronouns:
she, her, hers

Political ecology is the study of relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes. Juanita Sundberg researches political ecology using “the insights of feminist geography and the sensibilities of an ethnographer to bear on nature conservation, border security, and militarization.” The daughter of missionaries, she learned about human-land relations - personal knowledge that serves as the foundation of her professional research. Her Haury Visiting Fellow project, Democracy on the Line: The Political Ecology of Legal Suspension in U.S. Southern Boundary Enforcement, examines the legal framework in which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can waive all laws in order to build border walls, roads, and other infrastructure. The DHS Secretary has invoked the waiver five times, waiving thirty-six laws in 2008 to build border infrastructure in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. US lawmakers continue to introduce legislation to make these waivers permanent, including a recent effort by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.). For more about this work, follow Dr. Sundberg’s blog.

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