Ralph Saunders
Associate Professor, Geography

MAILING ADDRESS
Department of Earth Science
California State University, Dominguez Hills
1000 E. Victoria Street
Carson, CA 90747
Office: NSM B206
Tel (310) 243-3284
E-Mail: rsaunders@csudh.edu

B.A. Northwestern University, 1984
M.A University of Illinois at Chicago, 1988
PhD University of Arizona, 1997

In his teaching and research, Dr Saunders explores a broad range of issues pertaining to social and cultural geography. Specific research questions are as diverse as the relationship between globalization and the construction of cultural identity and landscape change and environmental knowledge within urban settings. Dr Saunders has also published on community policing, the social science research process, and Geography Education.

At Dominguez Hills he teaches all of the courses within the Human Geography track including Geo100 (Human Geography), Geo350 (World Geography), Geo360 (North America) and Geo357 (Metro LA). Most recently, Dr Saunders has begun work on an Atlas of Green Space for Metropolitan Los Angeles. The Atlas will describe the distribution of open, green space across the metropolitan region highlighting disparities in access. He foresees the production of this Atlas as a first step in a larger project on differential knowledge of the environment among the areas’ diverse residents. Dr. Saunders’ teaching blends the acquisition of basic geographic skills – including mapmaking and map interpretation – with the development of a more conceptual understanding of the processes shaping he world’s geography at different scales – from the local to the global. With the support of a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dr. Saunders has just completed work on an overhaul of the requirements for a degree in Human Geography.

Selected publications and conference papers include:

“A Hatalom, A Terület És Transnsznacionalizmus Kritikai Geográfiái” (“Critical Geographies of Power, Territory and Transnationalism”) co-authored with Scott Kirsch in Tények és velemények a kritikai geográfráról. (Volume XVII, Number 2: pp. 103-106) (This journal is published by the Center for Regional Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.)

“One Nation, Indivisible: Transnationalism and National Identity After September 11.” A paper presented at the 2003 Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geographers in New Orleans, LA.

“Transnational Communities and National Identity.” Paper presented at the 3rd International Critical Geography Conference, June 2002, Bekescsaba, Hungary.

“Home and Away: Bridging the Gaps Between Fieldwork and Everyday Life,” in Geographical Review (vol. 91:1&2, 2001), pp. 88-94.

“Teaching Rap: The Politics of Race in the Classroom,” in The Journal of Geography. (vol. 98:4, 1999), pp. 185-188.

“From Language to Action: The Rhetoric, Plans and Practice of Community Policing in Boston,” in Urban Geography (vol. 20: 5, 1999), pp. 461-482.

“The Space Community Policing Makes and the Body that Makes It,” in The Professional Geographer  (vol. 51:1, 1999), pp. 135-146.

“Rap and the Construction of Identity in the African-American Ghetto,” The Arizona Anthropologist  (no. 10, 1993), pp. 23-38.