The Oakland School of Urban Studies

Trisha Barua
Cultural Studies
UC Davis

Susette Min
Asian American Studies
UC Davis

Alex Werth
Geography
UC Berkeley

Long appearing at the margins of maps of U.S. and world cities, Oakland, CA is in the midst of rapid and contested social and spatial change. These upheavals have turned the city into a center of media attention and capital investment, on the one hand, and struggles for racial and economic justice, on the other. Comprised of eleven graduate students from the fields of cultural studies, gender and feminist studies, geography, sociology, and city planning, this working group collaborates to identify and analyze the multiple social processes that converge in and emanate from this ambivalent city. Drawing upon a wide range of theories, archives, and research practices, members of the “Oakland School” consider the historical making and contemporary remaking of the city and region through the lenses of racialization; gentrification and displacement; urban politics and planning; cultural economies; policing, surveillance, and carcerality; and settler colonialism and Indigenous resistance.