Alexander Arroyo

I am a multi-disciplinary geographer working across critical, cartographic, and creative traditions. Drawing on training in the social, environmental, and spatial sciences, humanities, and design fields, my scholarship and creative practice broadly explore how relations between technics and nature give shape to geographies of power. Key themes from my recent work include oceanic geographies of U.S. empire in Pacific and Arctic worlds; the political ecology of infrastructure, with special attention to peripheral phases of speculation, decommissioning, and abandonment; and intertwined colonial histories of fire mapping, forestry, and urbanism. In my public-facing work, I collaborate with community, academic, and civil society partners to advance struggles for climate and environmental justice through participatory spatial research, mapping, and other media.

I earned my PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley, with an additional designated emphasis in Science and Technology Studies. I also hold an Master’s in Landscape Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and a BA in Philosophy and Human Rights from Columbia University. Prior to arriving at Middlebury, I was faculty in the Committee on Environment, Geography, and Urbanization and Associate Director of the Urban Theory Lab at the University of Chicago.

You can find more information about my work at axarroyo.github.io