Melissa Gilbert Associate Professor
Office: 333 Gladfelter Hall
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Areas of Expertise: Urban, economic, and feminist geography, feminist and critical race theory, urban social theory, urban poverty and labor markets, labor and community organizing, information technologies and economic empowerment, qualitative methods. |
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Education: Ph.D. Clark University , Geography, 1993 |
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Academic Positions: Senior Research Fellow, Information Technology and Society Research Group, Temple University, 2001-present. Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University, 2000-present. Assistant Professor, Department of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University, 1996-2000. Affiliated Faculty, Women's Studies Program, Temple University, 1996-present. Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University of Southern California , 1995-1996. Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Georgia State University, 1992-1996. |
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Courses Offered: GUS 1021: Urban Society |
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Research:
Dr. Gilbert's research interests are in areas of urban and economic geography, feminist and critical race studies, and social action research. She has approached these broad and interconnected fields through theoretically informed, empirical research examining how urban and economic processes construct, and are constructed by relations of power and inequality.
Dr. Gilbert is particularly interested in the barriers that poor women of various ethnic/”racial” groups experience, and the individual and collective survival strategies that they employ, in attempting to support themselves and their families. And, because she is interested in social change, and the role of academics and research in this process, she has utilized social action research as part of a broader feminist methodology.
Her primary research contributions have been to offer alternative theoretical and methodological approaches to study the intersection of gender, racism, and space to further our understanding of labor markets, urban poverty, community organizing and digital inequalities. Previous research, supported by the Fulbright Commission, the National Science Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council, examined how marginalized groups get incorporated into the urban labor market; how labor market inequalities get reproduced through space and in places; and the relationships among social networks, employment strategies and urban poverty. This research demonstrated how context, place, and space matter to women's daily experiences of poverty, the opportunities and constraints that poor women experience, and the manner in which social policy is implemented. And, because implementing progressive policies to eliminate poverty requires political action by poor people that is grounded in their lived experience, she became interested in the growing anti-poverty movement. Specifically, her research has examined how the current political and economic conditions have resulted in an emphasis on organizing across race, class, and gender boundaries and a strategy of jumping scale from local to international forms of organizing and resistance.
In the last ten years, Dr. Gilbert has focused increasingly on the relationships among access to information and communication technology (ICT), poor women's economic opportunities, and poor people's community-based organizing from a feminist geographical perspective. The objectives of this research are to examine: 1. how access to ICTs and associated information flows enhances, limits and transforms poor women's daily survival strategies and collective organizing; 2. how poor women's experiences of IT represent a different technology paradigm and transform the ICT/organizing nexus; and 3. how can we attain the normative goal of helping to empower marginalized communities given the resource differentials inherent in university-community partnerships. Dr. Gilbert's current research examines the intersection of inequalities in access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) and economic inequalities using Philadelphia as a case study. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of primary and secondary data, this research seeks to understand the relationships among technological and social capital embedded in particular neighborhoods, occupational sex and race segregation, local labor markets, and access to and use of ICTs and related information flows in areas important to people such as jobs, education, and political participation. By understanding the relationships among gendered, racialized and place inequalities in terms of access to ICTs and economic empowerment, this research will contribute to policy discussions about how to empower people living in poverty. |
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Recent Publications:
Gilbert, M. and M. Masucci, C. Homko, and A. Bove (2008) Theorizing the Digital Divided: Information and Communication Technology Use Frameworks among Poor Women using a sTelemedicine System. Geoforum 39: 912-925.
Gilbert, M. and M. Masucci (2008) Reflections on a Feminist Collaboration: Goals, Methods, and Outcomes. In Feminisms in Geography: Space, Place, and Environment . Ed., K Falconer Al-Hindi and Pamela Moss. Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 237-246.
Gilbert, Melissa and Masucci, Michele (2006) “The Implications of Including Women's Daily Lives in a Feminist GIScience” Transactions in GIS 10:5 751-761.
Gilbert, Melissa and Masucci, Michele (2006) “Geographic Contributions to E-Collaboration Research.” International Journal of E-Collaboration Research , 2:1.i-v.
Gilbert, Melissa and Masucci, Michele (2005) “Research Directions for Information and Communication Technology in Geography,” Geoforum 36:3.277-79.
Gilbert, Melissa and Masucci, Michele (2005) “Moving Beyond “Gender and GIS” to a Feminist Perspective on Information Technologies: The Impact of Welfare Reform on Women's IT Needs” In A Companion to Feminist Geography . Edited by J. Seager and L. Nelson. Blackwell Publications, pp.305-321. |
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