I’m an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. In my book I explore subsistence food production as a potentially revolutionary act. I am interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation.  I got my MA and PhD in sociology at WSU, and my BA in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. Before my current life I was once an itinerant overland international traveler, Chicago Tribune travel writer, and a long-haul, 18-wheel-driving trucker. I am now a mom to three beautiful girls, roommate to one husband (ha) and custodian to 2 cats 2 dogs 2 cows and 5 chickens. I am now focused on doing anything I can to foment local, decentralized networks of people who can get us to the next iteration of society, and fast. The most urgent of these initiatives is SuLoFair, a cooperative startup whose mission is to accelerate local economies. 

 

I can teach courses from beginning sociology through upper-level classes on: globalization, food and agriculture, environment, sustainability, inequality, social movements, family and gender.

 

 

Patrick Fitzgerald, MA