Faculty

Kate Parizeau

PhD, University of Toronto, 2011
Assistant Professor

Office: Hutt 343
Tel:519-824-4120 ext. 52174
kparizea@uoguelph.ca

Specialization

Waste management and its social context; urban inequality; geographies of social justice; environmental health; gender and environmental labour; Latin America.

Research Interests and Areas of Expertise

My research uses waste management practices as a lens through which to interrogate complex systems of social organization and human exchanges with the natural world. This focus allows me to engage issues of social justice, environmental sustainability, and urban systems management. My most recent research projects have investigated the lives and work of the cartoneros of Buenos Aires, Argentina – urban informal recyclers who sort through curbside trash to make their living. My studies focus on these workers’ health, socio-economic status, and access to social resources, drawing on their experiences in order to investigate the economic, political, and spatial rationalities that encourage and maintain high levels of social inequality in a modern city.

My research interests are centred on the following three interrelated themes:

Social difference, informality, and urban inequality
My studies of informal sector work (particularly in Latin America) seek to describe the ways in which gender, racialization, and socioeconomic status play out in uneven urban landscapes.
Value and waste
I am also interested in investigating the ways that ‘filth’ and environmental contamination can affect a commodity’s life course, and also how the socio-cultural values of waste and dirt adhere to the people associated with such commodities either through their work or other types of proximity.
A ‘brown agenda’ of environmental sustainability
The third theme of my research interests pertains to the ‘brown agenda’ of environmental issues, including the provision of sanitation services and other environmental health matters arising from human urban development. This research interest is based in a recognition that exposure to environmental dangers are usually not evenly distributed in society, but often follow gradients of social and spatial inequality.

Selected Recent Publications

Parizeau, K. (Forthcoming). “La Salud de los Cartoneros de Buenos Aires (The Health of the Informal Recyclers of Buenos Aires).” In Suarez, F. and P. Schamber (Eds.) Recicloscopio II: Miradas sobre recuperadores urbanos de residuos de América Latina (Recycloscope II: Perspectives on Urban Waste Recoverers in Latin America). Prometeo–UNL: Buenos Aires. (11,552 words)

Parizeau, K., V. Maclaren and Lay Chanthy. 2008. “Budget sheets and buy-in: financing community-based waste management in Siem Reap, Cambodia.” Environment and Urbanization, 20(2); pp.445-463.

Parizeau, K. 2006. “Theorizing Environmental Justice: Environment as a Social Determinant of Health.” Munk Centre for International Studies Briefings: Comparative Program on Health and Society Lupina Foundation Working Paper Series 2005-2006; pp.101-128.

Parizeau, K., Maclaren, V, and L. Chanthy. 2006. “Waste Characterization as an Element of Waste Management Planning: Lessons learned from a study in Siem Reap, Cambodia.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 49(20); pp.110-128.

Parizeau, K. 2006. “The Global Challenge of Trash.” Alternatives Journal, 32(1); pp.16-18.

Parizeau, K., Chanthy, L., and V. Maclaren. 2005. “Community-Based Waste Management in Siem Reap, Cambodia.” In Maclaren, V. and Tran Hieu Nhue (Eds.) Integrated Waste Management in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam: Theory and Practice. Science and Technics Publishers: Hanoi; pp. 280-303.

Luginaah, I., Jerrett, M., Elliott, S., Eyles, J., Parizeau, K., Birch, S., Abernathy, T., Veenstra, G., Hutchinson, B., and C. Giovis. 2001. “Health profiles of Hamilton: Spatial characterisation of neighbourhoods for health investigations.” Geojournal, 53(2); pp. 135-147.

raduate Students Supervised (since 2005)