Jennifer Mokos
Assistant Professor
“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.” –Paul Farmer
Jennifer Mokos is an interdisciplinary community geographer interested in relationships between knowledge production, culture, and the environment. Her work addresses political and ethical issues related to equity and the environment, spatial and epistemic justice, and social health. Dr. Mokos earned a Ph.D. in Community, Research, and Action from Vanderbilt University and a Masters in Natural History and Environmental Interpretation from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Her current book project, Restoration as Removal: Homelessness, Ecology, and the Struggle for Change interrogates the boundary between human health and landscape health through ethnographic research on the ecological restoration of rivers in Southern California that have been sites of long-term homeless encampments.
Dr. Mokos’ second research project, “Flooded Afterlives,” (in collaboration with Jaime McCauley, CCU Sociology) is a multi-sited ethnographic and community-engaged study of the cultural dimensions of climate change. The project combines faculty and student research, co-curricular activities, and community partnerships to document ongoing (often unmet) needs and chronic stressors experienced by people in places made vulnerable by the threat of rising waters and more frequent and intense storms.
Dr. Mokos’ scholarly work has been published in multiple venues, including Geoforum, Medicine Anthropology Theory, and GeoJournal, and her research has been generously supported by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
Teaching Areas
Critical Thinking, Water & Women, Feminist Technology Studies, Ethnographic & Community-engaged Research Methods
Research Areas
Political Ecology of Health, Cultural Politics of Science & Nature, Housing & Homelessness, Flooding, Community Geography, Ethnographic and Participatory Research Methods