Research

I am a broadly trained human geographer working in the areas of economic, feminist, and urban geographies. Check out my CV and publications.

My research agenda responds to the global challenge of building inclusive economies by examining how the financialization of debt and remittances are creating new ecologies of precarity that are reshaping the lives of racialized women living in areas characterized by under-development and economic insecurity. To do this I draw upon anti- and decolonial frameworks in feminist, Black, Latin American, and Indigenous studies, economic geography, and political economy to analyze the finance industry and community social relations that nurture collective life and refuse capitalist expectations.

Currently I contribute to the Antipode Foundation funded project Beyond Esri: Moving Toward Abolition in Geography and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council funded project Urbanization, Gender, and the Global South: A transformative knowledge network (GenUrb).

Tulcingo Travel in Queens, New York, 2015. Photo by Araby Smyth

My current research with GenUrb and Dr. Linda Peake examines examines ecologies of precarity through a comparative analysis of women’s everyday urban experiences managing debts. Our analysis of interviews with 127 women provide insights into their life making practices, (neo)colonial currents of finance in each city and relationally across sites, and the possibilities for challenging patriarchal racial capitalism.

A map of the cities that have been in the GenUrb project 2017-2024. Image from https://genurb.apps01.yorku.ca/

I have also had the opportunity to work for some amazing scholars on their research projects. I made maps for Dr. Jack Gieseking’s A Queer New York, provided research assistance to Dr. Marianna Pavlovskaya’s Mapping the Solidarity Economy, and assisted Francis Donnelly in his geospatial data library.

Publications

Many of my publications are locked behind an academic paywall. Please email me asmyth [at] yorku [dot] ca and I will be happy to send you a PDF.

Doing Feminist Urban Research: Insights from the GenUrb Project

Edited by Linda Peake, Nasya S. Razavi, and Araby Smyth

With City Research Team contributions from Mai Al-Battat, Anindita Datta, Swagata Basu, Sonia Pardo Burgoa, Karen de Souza, Tsung-Yi Michelle Huang, Penn Tsz Ting Ip, Joy Marcus, Sylvester Nmormah, Bukola Omolara Odunola, Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin, Natasha Aruri, Linda Peake, and Nasya S. Razavi

Making Futures in Oaxaca: Remittances in the Diverse Economies of Social Reproduction. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 0(0): 1-13

Proceeding through Colonial Past Presents in Fieldwork: Methodological Lessons on Accountability, Refusal, and Autonomy. Antipode 55(1): 268-285

Challenging the Financialization of Remittances Agenda through Indigenous Women’s Practices in Oaxaca. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 54(4): 761-778

A Feminist Coven in the University. Gender, Place & Culture 27(6): 854-880

Re-Reading Remittances through Solidarity: Mexican Hometown Associations in New York City. Geoforum 85 (October): 12–19

Interlude: Calling All Collectives, Interviews with Feminist Geography Collectives. In Gökarıksel B, Hawkins M, Neubert C and Smith S (eds) Feminist Geography Unbound: Intimacy, Territory, and Embodied Power (pp 263-267). Morgantown: West Virginia University Press

The feminist killjoy handbook: the radical potential of getting in the way By Sara Ahmed. Gender, Place & Culture 0(0): 1-3

Lakou: Haitian Identity in Housing. In Holl S (ed) New Haiti Villages (pp 10-11). New York: Princeton Architectural Press

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