Elizabeth L. Sweet

Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning
PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2000

Professor Sweet is engaged in a stream of scholarship examining the role of planning and policy in the production and reproduction of social, economic, and spatial inequalities, considering race and gender. Using primarily qualitative methods she analyzes economic development policy from a diverse economies perspective that incorporates alternative capitalist and non-market activities. She is particularly interested in the nature and extent of minority women's economic actions and the complicated relationships between gender, culture, race, violence, economic opportunities and workforce development. The George Soros Civic Education Project, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Fulbright Program, the Illinois Department of Human Services, The Center for Democracy in a Multiracial Society, and the Institute of Research on Race and Public Policy have supported her work. She is the director of the Gender and Race Intersections in Planning Lab (www.griplab.org) and has worked in numerous community organizations in Boston and Chicago.

Professor Sweet’s teaching content and pedagogy emerge out of her research and practice. She has developed innovative and engaging classroom techniques at both the graduate and undergraduate levels and explores issues of race, gender and economic status in her classes. She also incorporates her international research experiences to explain and develop students’ understandings of contemporary and historical planning issues as well as the data collection methods and analysis that inform planning and policy making.

Contact Information
Room M210 Temple Buell Hall
611 Taft Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: 217.333.9069
Fax: 217.244.1717
E-mail: esweet1@illinois.edu

Current Research Areas

Her core research area is community development and the nexus of race, gender and citizenship. Particularly she is interested in issues of economic and workforce development as well as urban violence. Geographically, she comparatively studies Russia, Mexico, and the United States and the complicated relationships between diversity and the economy.

Selected Publications

Peer Review

Sweet, E. L. and S. Ortiz. Forthcoming Planning Engages Gender Violence: Evidence from Spain, Mexico, and the United States, Urban Studies (Oct, 2010 Vol. 47)

Sweet. E. L. Forthcoming New Configurations of Racism after 9/11: Gender and Race in the Context of the Anti-Immigrant City. edited volume by John Betancur and Cedric Harring Reinventing Race, Reinventing Racism: The 40th Anniversary of the Kerner Commission, Brill Publishers

Sweet E. L. Forthcoming Diversity in Urban Planning: From the Discipline to Department Climates. edited by Center for Democracy in a Multiracial Society--Jorge Chapa. Society, Race, Diversity and Campus Climate-Educational and Workplace Environment Assessment & Evaluation. University of Illinois Press

Sweet, E. L. 2009 (November) Women and the City, Encyclopedia of Urban Studies, edited by Ray Hutchison, Newbury Park, CA, SAGE Publications, Inc.

Sweet E. L. 2009 Ethnographic Understandings of Gender and Economic Transition in Siberia: Implications for Planners and Policy Makers. European Planning Studies Journal 17 (5) pp 701-718

Capeheart, L. and E. L. Sweet. 2006. Condiciόnes, Drogas, y La Cárcel: Life Circumstances and Drug Usage of Latino Arrestees in Miami, New York, San Antonio, and San Jose Criminal Justice Policy Review, Vol. 17 No.4 pp 427-450 (among the 50 most read articles in Criminal Justice Policy Review)

Sweet E. L 2006. Spy or Feminist: “Grrrilla” Research on the Margin, Volume 10, Advances in Gender Research pp. 145-162

Policy Reports and Other Publications

Sweet, E. L. Forthcoming Latina Socio-Economic Well Being (Labor Market Participation/ Poverty Rates) in Latina Portraits, Mujeres Latinas en Accíon

Sweet, E. L. 2009 Latina Portraits Social Economic Well Being Synopsis, Mujeres Latinas en Accíon. Policy Brief. http://www.mujereslatinasenaccion.org/Publications.htm

Sweet, E. L. 2007. Beyond WID WAD and GAD: Expanding Gendered Economic Development Theory Part 2. История и культура народов сибири стран центральной и восточной азии  батуевские чтения (History and Culture of the Siberian People -- Central and East Asia Countries: Batuevskie Readings), Ulan Ude, Russia pp 486-496

Sweet, E. L. 2006. Beyond WID WAD and GAD: Expanding Gendered Economic Development Theory Part 1 История и культура народов сибири стран центральной и восточной азии  батуевские чтения. (History and Culture of the Siberian People -- Central and East Asia Countries: Batuevskie Readings), Ulan Ude, Russia pp 125-133

Sweet E. L. 2006. Femicide and Economic Development in Ciudad Juarez: Part of a New Gender Agenda in Planning. Progressive Planning, No 167 Spring pp: 20-27

Sweet, E. L. and B. Gunzel. 2004. Trabajando y Creciendo: Low Income Latinas in the Chicago Workforce, Illinois Department of Human Services, Chicago, IL Policy Report

Sweet E. L. 2004 Trabajando y Cresiendo: Preliminary Findings on Low-Income Latinas in the Chicago Workforce, Gender and Human Security Latina/o Immigrants in the Midwest, Perspectives: Research Notes and News a publication of Woman and Gender in Global Perspectives Program, Volume 24, Number 2

Sweet E. L. and Y. Dous. CEP: an International Exchange Program in Omsk, in International Relations for Developing Social and Economic Process in the CIS Countries, conference papers published, Omsk, Russia, June 2001

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