Susannah Bunce
Education
Ph.D. in Environmental Studies, York University (2008)
MES–Planning, York University (1999)
Bachelor of Arts, University of Guelph (1994)
Teaching Interests
I teach in the Human Geography and City Studies programs. I emphasize class participation and discussion as a teaching approach and specialize in community-engaged experiential learning. I teach a C-level course (CITC02) where students learn about community-based planning and development in local Scarborough neighbourhoods through placements with non-profit organizations and social service agencies.
Courses:
JPG 1518: Sustainability and Urban Communities - Graduate Course in Geography & Planning, St. George
GGRD08H3: Research Seminar in Environmental Geography, UTSC
CITB03H3: Social Planning and Community Development, UTSC
CITC02H3: Placements in Community Development, UTSC
Research Interests
My research centres on the geographies and planning of urban communities and neighbourhoods and sustainable community building. I am interested in sustainable communities and strategies for socio-environmental justice at the urban neighbourhood scale. I engage with critical theories of urban commons and alternities, gentrification, environmental justice, urban political ecology, and more-than-human geographies to examine localized issues and politics of land use and community-based socio-environmental identifications with local spaces. I am interested in contestations caused by gentrification and other housing/land-based struggles. My research also focuses on insurgent responses and more hopeful, future-oriented community-engaged practices, particularly those related to affordable and equitable land stewardship (urban community land trusts and urban eco-villages). I conduct most of my research in Canadian, British, and European cities.
My work is grounded in scholar-activism, which blends long-term interest and engagement in anti-poverty, anti-racism, and environmental activism with my scholarly research and teaching practices. I work with a wide range of Toronto-based NGOs and other community partners in research and teaching.
Awards and Grants
Current Grants:
Office of the Vice-President, International - University of Toronto (2023-) Strategic
Challenges Fund – UCL-UofT Strategic Partnership: Critical Dialogues of the Post-Covid
City: Urban challenges and sustainable development in London UK and Toronto
$90,000
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2021-)
Insight Development Grant, Telling Creek Stories: Community Engagement and
Indigenous Place Keeping in the Highland Creek Watershed, Scarborough
Principal Investigator (with Co-Applicant, Dr. Nicole Latulippe, University of Toronto
Scarborough) $53,405
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada/Canada Mortgage and
Housing Corporation (2020-)
Partnership Grant, Balanced Supply of Housing Node
Co-Investigator and Co-Chair, Land Practice Innovations Working Group
(Principal Investigator: Dr. Penny Gurstein, University of British Columbia)
$1,375,000
School of Cities, University of Toronto (2019-) Research Challenge Funding,
Affordable Housing Challenge Project (Co-Lead with Dr. Alan Walks, UTM), $150,000
Awards:
UTSC Principal’s Undergraduate Teaching Award, 2017
Publications
Books:
Bunce, S., Livingstone, N., March, L., Moore, S. & Walks, A. (Eds.). (2020). Critical Dialogues of Governance, Development and Activism: London and Toronto UCL Press, London.
Bunce, S. (2018). Sustainability Policy, Planning, and Gentrification in Cities Routledge, Abingdon.
3 Selected Journal Articles:
March, L. & Bunce, S. (2022). Placing the More-than-Human in Environmental Gentrification. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (July 2022)
Clement, B. & Bunce, S. (2022). Coyotes and More-than-Human Commons: Exploring Co-existence through Toronto’s Coyote Response Strategy. Urban Geography (April 2022)
Bunce, S. (2016). Pursuing Urban Commons: Politics and Alliances in Community Land Trust Activism in East London Antipode 48(1), 134-150