Julie Guthman

Julie Guthman is a geographer and retiring professor of sociology at the University of California Santa Cruz, where she has been teaching courses on racial capitalism and the politics of food and agriculture and conducting research on food system transformation in the United States. Her 2019 book, Wilted: Pathogens, Chemicals, and the Fragile Future of the Strawberry Industry begun during her 2015 Mesa Refuge residency, was the recipient of the 2020 Meridian Award from the American Association of Geographers for outstanding scholarly work in geography. Most recently, she has been the principal investigator of the UC-AFTeR Project, a multi-campus collaboration investigating Silicon Valley’s recent forays into food and agriculture. Her forthcoming book, The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can’t Hack the Future of Food draws on that research and was partially written at a Mesa Refuge Alum Week.

Julie’s prior publications include two multi-award winning monographs (Agrarian Dreams: the Paradox of Organic Farming in California and Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism – also begun at a Mesa Refuge residency), an edited collection and over sixty articles in peer-reviewed journals. Her research and writing has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the USDA, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, as well as the Mesa Refuge. She has also received an Excellence in Research Award from the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society, the Martin M. Chemers Award for Outstanding Research from the Social Sciences Division at UC Santa Cruz, and the Distinguished Career Award from the Cultural and Political Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers.