Associate Professor Jill Wigle
Geographies of housing, informality and spatial regulation; the right to the city; Mexico City
| Degrees: | Ph.D. (University of Toronto), MSc. Planning (University of Toronto) |
| Email: | jill.wigle@carleton.ca |
Biography
As an urban geographer, I’m broadly interested in housing, planning and urban governance issues and their relationship to precarity and equity. In Mexico City, my research has focused on the geographies of “informal” housing and spatial regulation; everyday planning practices, space and gender; and city-making and the politics of neighbourhood upgrading. This research explores access to land and housing, the right to the city, and the ways that “formal” planning practices produce “informality” in different territories of the city. More recently, I’ve started to explore affordable housing and community land trusts as part of the Carleton’s multidisciplinary research project, A Safe and Affordable Place to Call Home (2023-2033). At Carleton, I’m cross-appointed to the Institute of Political Economy (IPE) and participate in the Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LACS) Program. I welcome graduate students with related research interests. Some students may also be interested in our MA Geography with Specialization in Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
2024-2025 Courses
- Community-engaged Research (GEOG 4450), Fall 2024
- Approaches to Geographic Inquiry (GEOG 5000), Fall 2024
- Cities in a Global World (GEOG 3023), Winter 2025
- Regional Field Excursion: Mexico City (GEOG 3030), May 2025 (details forthcoming)
Research Interests
- The social production of housing and the right to the city
- Urban planning, spatial regulation, power and precarity
- Affordable housing and community land trusts
Publications
Jill Wigle, Laura Macdonald, Lucy Luccisano & Paula Maurutto. 2023. Struggles over city-making: The community program for neighborhood improvement in Mexico City. Journal of Urban Affairs. pp.1-20.
Wigle, Jill and Lorena Zárate.2022. Claiming the right to the city in Mexico City: From lived experience to mobilizing for change, in Patricia Ballamingie and David Szanto (eds.) Showing Theory to Know Theory: Understanding Social Science Concepts through Illustrative Vignettes. Showing Theory Press. Available at: https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/showingtheory/ https://doi.org/10.22215/stkt
Wigle, Jill and Lorena Zárate. 2022. The right to the city in Latin America and the Caribbean, in Jesús González-Pérez, Clara Irazábal Zurita and Rubén Lois-González (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Urban Studies in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Wigle, Jill. 2020. Fast-track redevelopment and slow-track regularization: The uneven geographies of spatial regulation in Mexico City. Latin American Perspectives 47 (6): 56-76.
Hungry Cities Partnership Report No. 7: The Urban Food System of Mexico City, Mexico. 2017. Cape Town, South Africa and Waterloo, Canada: African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town and Wilfrid Laurier University/Balsillie School of International Affairs.
Connolly, Priscilla and Jill Wigle. 2017. (Re)constructing Informality and “Doing Regularization”in the Conservation Zone of Mexico City. Planning Theory and Practice, 18 (2): 183-201.
Wigle, Jill. 2016. De Áreas Verdes a Zonas Grises: Gobernanza del Espacio y Asentamientos Irregulares en Xochimilco, Ciudad de México, in Antonio Azuela (Ed.) La Ciudad y Sus Reglas: Sobre la Huella del Derecho en el Orden Urbano. Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones, UNAM and PAOT.
Wigle, Jill. 2014. The “graying” of “green” zones: Spatial governance and irregular settlement in Xochimilco, Mexico City. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 38(2): 573-589.
Wigle, Jill and Lorena Zárate. 2012. Realizing the Right to the City: From declaration to action? Progressive Planning 193: 35-38.
Wigle, Jill. 2010. The “Xochimilco model” for managing irregular settlements in conservation land in Mexico City. Cities 27: 337–347.
Wigle, Jill. 2010. Social Relations, Property and “Peripheral” Informal Settlement: The Case of Ampliación San Marcos, Mexico City. Urban Studies 47(2): 411–436.
Wigle, Jill. 2008. Shelter, Location and Livelihoods: Exploring the Linkages in Mexico City. International Planning Studies 13 (3): 197-222.