Dr. Adam M. Pine Director, Interdisciplinary Studies in Three Departments (IS3D)
Dr. Pine is an urban geographer (Ph.D. Rutgers) with teaching and research interests in urban policy, race, hunger, and the global food system. As a community-engaged scholar, his work explores how marginalized communities advocate for change and how universities can support these efforts. His principle research projects examine the interconnections between housing precarity and food insecurity and how anti-racist food activists are fighting to institute the right to food in the US.
Publications
Pine, Adam. 2017. Confronting Hunger in the USA: Searching for Community Empowerment and Food Security in Food Access Programs. New York; Routledge.
Pine, Adam and Olaf Kuhlke, eds. 2014. Global Movements: Dance, Place, and Hybridity. Boulder, Colorado: Lexington Press.
Pine, Adam and Olaf Kuhlke, eds. 2013. Geographies of Dance: Body, Movement and Corporeal Negotiations. Boulder, Colorado: Lexington Press.
Lohnes, Joshua and Adam Pine. 2023. “Feeding Lines: Standing Up in the Neoliberal Charitable Food Regime.” Human Geography. 16.2 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/19427786231157289.
Pine, Adam. 2022. “Ambient struggling: food, chronic disease, and spatial isolation among the urban poor.” Agriculture and Human Values. DOI 10.1007/s10460-022-10408-0.
Pine, Adam, Rebecca de Souza, and Mary Baumgartner. 2022. “Reimagining the Food Shelf: Conceptualizing the Food Shelf as a Community Food Security Project.” Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition. DOI: 10.1080/19320248.2022.2123265.
Pine, Adam. 2016. “Social Reproduction and Urban Competitiveness: How Dominican Bodegueros Use the Care Economy.” City & Society 27.3:272-294. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ciso.12065.
Pine, Adam and John Bennett. 2014. “Food Access and Food Deserts: The Diverse Methods that Residents of a Neighborhood in Duluth, Minnesota Use to Provision Themselves.” Community Development 45.4:317-336. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15575330.2014.930501.
Pine, Adam and Rebecca de Souza. 2013. “Including the voices of communities in food insecurity research: An empowerment-based agenda for food scholarship.” Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 3.4:71-79. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2013.034.007.
Pine, Adam. 2010. “The Performativity of Urban Citizenship.” Environment and Planning A 42.5:1103-1120. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1068/a42193.
Pine, Adam & Rebecca de Souza,. 2023. Hunger, Survivance, and Imaginative Futures: A Racial Analysis of the “Right to Food” in Dempsey, S. E. (Ed.), Organizing Food Justice: Critical Organizational Communication Theory Meets the Food Movement. Routledge.
Pine, Adam. 2019. “The Liberal Arts are Essential to Addressing the World’s Grand Challenges.” In “Think Pieces on UMD’S Liberal Education Program and the Value of the Liberal Arts.” Edited by Kristin Hylenski and Jennifer Brady. UMD Digital Conservancy.
Pine, Adam. 2014. “Salsa Cosmopolitanism: Situating the Dancing Body as Part of the Global Cosmopolitan Project.” In Global Movements: Dance, Place, and Hybridity, edited by Adam Pine and Olaf Kuhlke, 121-140. Boulder, Colorado: Lexington Press.
Kuhlke, Olaf and Adam Pine. 2014. “Introduction” In Global Movements: Dance, Place, and Hybridity, edited by Adam Pine and Olaf Kuhlke, vii-xii. Boulder, Colorado: Lexington Press.
Pine, Adam and Olaf Kuhlke. 2014. “Conclusion: Valorizing the Many Different Spaces of Dance: Co-opting the Cultural Choreography of Globalization.” In Global Movements: Dance, Place, and Hybridity, edited by Adam Pine and Olaf Kuhlke, 161-168. Boulder, Colorado: Lexington Press.
Kuhlke, Olaf and Adam Pine. 2013. “Introduction.” In Geographies of Dance: Body, Movement and Corporeal Negotiations, edited by Adam Pine and Olaf Kuhlke, vii-xviii. Boulder, Colorado: Lexington Press.
Pine, Adam and Olaf Kuhlke. 2013. “Conclusion.” In Geographies of Dance: Body, Movement and Corporeal Negotiations, edited by Adam Pine and Olaf Kuhlke, 207-212. Boulder, Colorado: Lexington Press.
Pine, Adam. 2013.“Transnational Neighborhoods and the Metropolitan Community.” In The Routledge Companion to Urban Regeneration, edited by Michael E. Leary and John McCarthy, 371-382. London: Routledge.
Pine, Adam. 2022. Combating food insecurity and creating sustenance: addressing the root causes of hunger in the US through political empowerment and public policy engagement. Local Environment. 28:2, 247-254, DOI: 10.1080/13549839.2022.2155943.
Pine, Adam. 2022. “Food system activism and the housing crisis. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 11(3), 13–17. https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2022.113.021.
Pine, Adam. 2014. “Understanding Food Knowledge, Food Access and the Potential for Activism in Support of Food Justice.” Review essay of Alternative Food Networks: Knowledge, Practice and Politics by David Goodman, E. Melanie DuPuis and Michael Goodman and Embodied Food Politics by Michael S. Carolan. In Human Geography. 7.1: 102-109.
Pine, Adam. 2009. Gated Communities: International Perspectives Edited by Rowland Atkinson and Sarah Blandy. Progress in Human Geography. 33.
Pine, Adam. 2008. Cities of Whiteness By Wendy Shaw. Society and Space, 28.6.
Pine, Adam, Adam Fulton, Jenn Reed Moses and James Gittemeier. “Creating equitable cities goes beyond police reform: Duluth in position to embrace racial equality through urban planning.” Duluth News Tribune, 11/20/2020.
Rebecca de Souza and Adam Pine. “Trump's new rules for SNAP benefits are cruel.” Minneapolis Star Tribune. Opinion Exchange. 8/30/2019.
Pine, Adam, John Bennett and Ryan Pesch. 2013. “Lincoln Park Food Access Feasibility Report.” Healthy Duluth Area Coalition and Fair Food Access Lincoln Park: Duluth, Minnesota.
Pine, Adam and John Bennett. 2011. “Food Access in Duluth’s Lincoln Park/West End Neighborhood.” University of Minnesota.
Pine, Adam. 2011. “SHARE Wisconsin in the Twin Ports: A summary of program utilization.” A report produced by the students in Urban Geography (3334). Duluth, Minnesota.
Pine, Adam, John Bennett, Brett Ausmus, Jason Beutz, Jessica Montgomery, Kevin Pexa and David Rosen. 2010. “Quality of Life and Population Movement on Minnesota's Iron Range.” University of Minnesota.
Whitman, Gordon and Adam Pine. 2002. “More Than a Home: Affordable Housing and Quality of Life in Philadelphia.” Background Paper for the National Housing Conference Senior Executive Roundtable.
Bakia, K., Harding, K., Monto, C., Pallante, J., Pine, A., and Stauffer, C. 2001. “North and West Philadelphia Neighborhood Baseline Project.” Philadelphia Office of Housing and Community Development: Philadelphia, PA.
Teaching
I believe that the purpose of undergraduate education is to guide students in developing the critical thinking skills they need to understand how our globally interconnected world operates. Therefore my classes are always global in scope and discuss how countries around the world are addressing critical issues such as food access, the housing crisis, and urban sustainability challenges. My classes tend to minimize lecturing in favor of group presentations, class discussion, community engaged research projects and other collaborative class projects. For example, students in Honors 413 The Global Housing Crisis interview people working at organization in San Diego that address the needs of our unhoused neighbors, and students in GEOG 342: Food Place and Culture create a final project where they explore three different food spaces in San Diego and describe how they fit into course themes such as gentrification, alternative food movements and food deserts / food apartheid.
Current Courses:
Reading:
Joassart, Pascale. 2022. Food Geographies : Social, Political, and Ecological Connections. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. 10-15 Current research publications in geography
Course Description:
Food is an integral part of life on earth, and in recent years has become a key focus of geographic research. Take the simple example of an apple you purchase at a grocery store: geographers are interested in issues such as the health of the soil that apple was grown in, how much the worker who picked that apple was paid, the ecological impacts of transporting the apple from field to shelf, and how that apple affects your diet and overall health. Studying each of these issues demands that we step back and look at each component of the food system individually AND draw on different disciplinary backgrounds such as political science, economics. and urban planning to understand how our foodscape was shaped and how we may be able to reshape it in the future. Geography is a unique and exciting discipline because we are as interested in the big-picture questions such as why apples are part of the American diet, as we are in the more specific questions like why apples at COSTCO are cheaper than apples sold at a convenience store.
Assignments:
Students complete weekly homework assignments as well as in-class assignments. These assignments are often interactive projects asking students to prepare a presentation for the class on farming techniques around the world, or exploring how climate change is affecting the global food supply.
Students also complete three individual papers applying course themes to specific questions.
Reading:
Joassart, Pascale, and Fernando J. Bosco, eds. 2018. Food and Place : A Critical Exploration. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. 10-15 Current research publications in geography
Course Description:
This course explores the many ways in which food is shaped by the social forces that construct life on earth. For example, even though everyone needs calories to live, people choose to eat different food based on where they grew up, how old they are, how much money they make and how their bodies metabolize food. Therefore food really isn't the same for everyone: people who grew up hungry and people who grew up with eating disorders have a very different relationship with food compared to people who grew up only eating fast food from McDonalds or people who have a live-in chef. Therefore studying food demands we examine the very different ways in which food impacts people's lives.
Assignments:
Students complete weekly homework assignments as well as in-class assignments. These assignments are often interactive projects asking students to apply course concepts to specific questions; for example, to compare food costs in different neighborhoods of San Diego or analyze how anti-hunger organizations are empowering their participants.
Students also complete three individual papers applying course themes to specific questions.
Readings:
Wheeler, Stephen M. and Christina D. Rosan. 2021. Reimagining sustainable cities: strategies for designing greener, healthier, more equitable communities. Oakland: University of California Press. 10-15 Current research publications in geography
Course Description:
This course explores the promises and possibilities posed by the twinned challenges of urbanization and sustainability. Currently, over half of the world's population lives in cities, which means that as climate change alters global weather patterns cities will face unprecedented challenges to how they feed, house, move, and provide for their populations. These challenges are different in highly developed countries as compared to countries in the developing world, and our class will provide a global analysis of these challenges. In addition, cities are shaped by global issues such as nationalism, the clean energy transition, global inequality, the global rise in authoritarianism, racism, colonialism and rural development. Therefore our exploration of sustainable cities will take a broad perspective as we seek to understand how these global forces shape sustainable practices in cities around the world.
Assignments:
Students complete weekly homework assignments as well as in-class assignments. These assignments are often interactive projects asking students to apply course concepts to specific questions; for example, to examine how sustainable development projects in Europe incorporate immigrant communities or to examine sustainable transit projects in the San Diego/Tijuana region.
Students work in groups to present two case studies from around the world to the class.
Books:
Potts, Deborah. 2020. Broken Cities: Inside the Global Housing Crisis. London: Zed Books.
Mitchell, Don. Mean Streets: Homelessness, Public Space, and the Limits of Capital. Vol. 47. University of Georgia Press, 2020.
Weinstein, Liza. 2014. The Durable Slum: Dharavi and the Right to Stay Put in Globalizing Mumbai. University of Minnesota Press.
Course Description:
The global housing system is in crisis: across the globe over one billion people live in slum conditions, and every night almost one million Americans are unhoused. This course explores the global housing crisis from a transnational and interdisciplinary perspective. We will study the historical and contemporary causes of the housing crisis, learn how governments and civil society are addressing the needs of unhoused people and working to build more housing, and meet local actors addressing housing needs in San Diego. The course will explore how other countries have created housing systems that more effectively meet the needs of their citizens, and learn how unhoused people take care of themselves and their families. Students will be expected to lead course discussions, work in teams to research housing issues, and engage meaningfully with members of the local community.
Assignments:
Students work in groups to present the readings each week, explaining to the class the key themes and drawing connections across course texts.
Students also produce three class projects in which they interview people at organizations in the San Diego/ Tijuana region as well as across the nation and the world addressing housing issues.
Reading:
Epstein, David J., (2019). Range: Why generalists triumph in a specialized world. New York, Riverhead Books.
Tupper, H., & Ellis, S. (2020). The Squiggly Career: ditch the ladder, discover opportunity, design your career. New York: Penguin.
Each student chooses a biography or autobiography about a person in a career that interests them
Course Description:
This course is the first class in the IS3D interdisciplinary studies sequence consisting of Gen S 300, GEN S 400, and GEN S 490. Students engage with the idea of wicked problems and explore how their unique interdisciplinary backgrounds are preparing them to address specific career and societal challenges. They learn about research methodologies in interdisciplinary studies, and use those skills to research more about the wicked problems in their focus area. During the second part of the course we partner with SDSU Career Services to help students prepare for their internship and future careers. All students create resumes, cover letters, and attend a career fair. This section of the course is taught in partnership with the IS3D internship coordinator and also engages with questions of professional development and career planning. Students research graduate schools in their area of interest and conduct informational interviews with professional mentors.
Assignments:
Students choose a wicked problem to analyze that lies at the intersection of their three IS3D disciplines and write a paper exploring how different careers are addressing this societal problem.
Students work with career services to create a resume, cover letter, attend a career fair, and conduct informational interviews.
Students create a final portfolio which combines their wicked problem analysis with their professional development projects. This portfolio describes how their interdisciplinary background is preparing them for future career and societal challenges.
Our Globalizing World This course served as a required course for Environment, Sustainability, and Geography (ESG) majors and covers basic human geography concepts and covers development patterns in different regions in the world. Course concepts include colonialism, physical geography, climate change, and contemporary geopolitical issues.
Urban Geography This was a global course covering the history of urbanization from the ancient world to our present urban condition. In addition to the history of urbanization the course covered current global conditions and contemporary urban challenges such as sustainability, cosmopolitanism and economic development.
Urban Planning This was a US-based course designed to introduce students to the practices and challenges of contemporary urban planning. Class speakers from around the region discussed their work, and students learned how planners shape US cities. Required for students in the Urban Studies track of the ESG major.
Cities and Citizenship This course served as the capstone course for students on the Urban and Regional Studies track of the ESG major. Students collaborated with local non-profit organizations to address urban issues, and also planned for post-college plans such as graduate school or the job search process.
Community Empowerment in South Asian (Study Abroad Course) Students spent 3 weeks in Bangalore learning about the history and culture of South Asia with a focus on community empowerment, regional development issues, and activism. Taught in collaboration with local organizations that arranged interactions with local communities. Although based in Bangalore, the course also visited rural communities.
