Galt, Ryan

I am a broadly-educated geographer whose teaching and research interests are centered on the relationship between society, agriculture, food, and the environment.  This is a long-standing theme within the discipline of geography, expressed in the subfields of cultural-historical ecology, cultural ecology, and now political ecology.  I have a regional focus on the Americas, specifically Costa Rica, the Midwest, and California.

My research to date has used the framework of geographical political ecology to understand agriculture and food systems.  I also use theoretical perspectives from geographical and sociological work in the political economy of agriculture.  I am increasingly interested in the philosophical foundations of interdisciplinary learning aimed at enhancing sustainability, especially the philosophy of critical realism; high-level competency development; and the praxis of critical pedagogy based in social constructivism.  I remain dedicated to cartographic and visual explanations based on graphic design principles.