Andrew Herod
Professor of Geography
- William A. Owens Award, 2009
- Creative Research Medal, 2001
Andrew Herod, professor of geography, motivated by the failure of contemporary social theory to understand the lives of social actors, particularly workers, as fundamentally spatially structured, has explored the complex transformations of place that characterize “globalization.” A major result is his deconstruction of the conventional wisdom, both in academic and popular discourses, about globalization to show that its widespread image as a homogenizing phenomenon is too simplistic. He argues instead for a more nuanced, spatially sensitive approach to understanding global capitalism’s emerging geography. By creating a new subfield within the social and behavioral sciences—labor geography—Herod has thus forced social scientists to reexamine the idea of place in social theory. The significance of his achievement is apparent by how widely his ideas have been cited, not just in geographic literature but also in fields such as labor and industrial relations, political science, international relations, anthropology, and sociology.
