A critical economic geographer and urban scholar, Desiree Fields investigates how property, finance, and technology intersect to reshape urban spaces and social relations, with a particular focus on housing financialization and digital platforms. As Dr. Fields steps into her new role as Geography Chair, she describes her committment to preserving and building upon the strengths and values of our department.
Can you share about your background and what led you to UC Berkeley?
I grew up in the Bay Area but spent most of my adult life in New York, where I got my PhD at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and later in the U.K., where I taught in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield for five years. I was busy putting down roots in Sheffield when my friend, Brett Christophers, pointed out that UC Berkeley was looking for an economic geographer. The U.K. is where I truly became a geographer, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to reconnect with the Bay Area! What really drew me to the department was the chance to join this community at a time when it was in the midst of remaking itself and growing in new directions while building on our incredible history of scholarship and activism.
What drew you to serve in this position at this particular moment in its history?
This particular moment is certainly a pivotal time to take on a leadership role in academia! In some ways the decision to serve as chair was an easy one, because our current chair Jovan Lewis has been a remarkable steward of our department and a generous mentor to prepare me for this role. We have a cadre of warm and capable staff, faculty, and lecturers carrying out research and teaching I deeply admire, and genuinely inventive and inquisitive graduate and undergraduate students. It is an honor to be entrusted with the responsibility to chair the department at a time when the work we do is under attack and many members of our community feel vulnerable. As the first woman to chair a department founded in the 19th century, I hope to build trust with all members of our community, learn from the mistakes I will inevitably make, and keep growing the passion and creativity of UC Berkeley Geography.
What strengths or values of the department do you feel especially committed to preserving and building upon?
Something that is truly special about our department is the variety and diversity of students and faculty, both in terms of who we are and what we do. While a discipline that spans across social, physical, and geospatial science is inherently varied, it is exciting to see how a department that has often been defined by one or two dominant approaches, such as development studies, Marxist political economy, or cultural landscapes, is being recognized for work spanning digital geographies, Black geographies, legal geographies, cultural and political ecology, and more! And in a discipline that has been slower than many others to open up space for underrepresented minority groups, our department has made incredible strides to advance the diversity of our faculty and graduate students over the past several years. Through hiring new colleagues and particularly through initiatives like Berkeley Black Geographies, our department is welcoming a broader range of scholars than ever before, and changing the face of the discipline and terms of debate in the process. So often when I meet with undergraduate students taking their first courses in the department, they tell me they didn’t know they could ask these kinds of questions in geography, which is a testament to the original and vital work our department is doing, and would not be possible if we looked the same as we did ten years ago. I am excited to continue nurturing and showcasing this excellence in the coming years.
If someone asked you why Geography at Berkeley matters right now, what would you say?
We matter because our scholarship necessarily moves with the world and its changes, and because we are clear on our commitments to our students and our scholarship. Everything we do in this department—whether it’s seeking to mitigate the impacts of climate change and pollution, constructing anti-imperial environmental knowledge, unsettling dominant modes of representing spatial relations, re-examining taken-for- granted “common sense” of the economy, or interrogating white supremacy and racial hierarchies, is under political attack in this moment. Our work questions assumptions about the order of the world and points toward other worldmaking possibilities, which is why it is threatening to the powerful, and also why it matters so much.
What’s something about you—academic or personal—that you think the Geography community might not know, but should?
I want to share something that influences how I show up in our community. Because my parents did not graduate from college, and no one else in my family has a PhD, I didn’t have many close reference points for my education and career trajectory. I have uncovered a lot of the hidden curriculum of academia as I have moved through graduate school and my career thus far. My experience is not necessarily unique, but it’s important to share because higher education and the academic world more generally can be mystifying and alienating. This is true for everyone, but especially so if the people you’re closest to don’t share those experiences. Particularly at such a large and respected institution as Berkeley, I want our many first-generation college and graduate students to know that if I belong here, so do they. Attending public institutions throughout every level of my schooling has really underlined for me that education is for everyone—not only as a launchpad into a better life, but as a way to better understand the world so as to change it. I am passionate about public education because everyone in our society deserves the chance to participate in worldmaking.