About Elizabeth Sweet
Elizabeth L Sweet is the Associate Dean in the School for the Environment and Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Community Development. She is an expert in planning theory and qualitative research methodologies. Professor Sweet engages in collaborative projects examining links between economies, violence, and identities as they relate to community economic development and environmental justice.
Areas of Expertise
Planning Theory Qualitative Methods Violence Against women Anti-Racist, Feminst, and Decolonial Planning Traditional Ecological Knowledge Latin American, Native and Black Urban IssuesSelected Publications
2025 Sweet, E. L. Rethinking Spatial Analysis: Native, Black, & Latina/x Feminist theories and Methods for Engagement, Equity and Justice, in Designing Gender Sensitive Spaces for Consenting Cities: Practices and Provocations. Monash University XYX Lab Gender and Place. Routledge.
2024 Sweet, E. L. Addressing violence against women means reimagining time, space and relationships, Nature Cities (invited) 1, 394–395.
2024 Biswas, R. and Sweet, E. L. Reimagining the urban through agency as healing justice: Stories from Kolkata and Chicago. Urban Studies online first 1-17.
2023 Sweet, E. L., Vasudevan, R., and Ortiz Escalante, S. Recrafting Urban Narratives through Body Map Storytelling, Lunch 17___Craft, University of Virginia Design Journal. pp.66-75.
2023 Sweet, E. L. and Harper-Anderson, E. Race, space, and trauma: Using community accountability for healing justice, special issue Anti-Racist Futures: Disrupting Racist Planning Practices in Workplaces, Institutions, and Communities. Journal of the American Planning Association, 89(4), 554–565.
2022 Sweet, E. L. and Raciti, A. Commentary: Planning theories struggle at the intersections of gendered, colonized, and racialized bodies, Journal of the American Planning Association, (invited) 88(4), 583-584.
2021 Sweet, E. L. Anti-Blackness/Nativeness and erasure in Mexico: Black feminist geographies and Latin American decolonial dialogues for U.S. urban planning, the Journal of Race Ethnicity and the City.1(2): 78-92.
2021 Sweet E.L., R. Sanders, and D. M. Peters. Reversing the gaze, Insiders out, outsiders in: Stories from the ivory tower and the field. Journal of Urban Affairs, 43(7), 1028-1041.
2018 Sweet, E. L. Cultural Humility: An Open Door for Planners to Locate Themselves and Decolonize Planning Theory, Education and Practice. eJournal of Public Affairs 7(2):1-16.
2017 Sweet, E. L. and S. Ortiz Escalante. Engaging Territorio Cuerpo-Tierra through body and community mapping: A methodology for making communities safer. Gender Place in Culture 24(4): 594-606.
2015 Sweet, E. L. and S. Ortiz Escalante. Bringing bodies into planning: visceral methods, fear, and gender violence. Urban Studies, 52(10): 1826-1845.
2015 Chakars, M., and E. L. Sweet. Women and the economics of survival before and after regime change: Diverse economies and work strategies in the Russian Republic of Buryatia. GeoJournal 79(5): 649-663.
Professor & Associate Dean, School for the Environment