• Ph.D., UC Berkeley, 2004
• M.A., University of Georgia, 1997
• B.A., Saint Olaf College, 1990

• GEOG 160: Food Worlds
• GEOG 201: World Regional Geography
• GEOG 341: Nature and Society in California
• GEOG 365: Globalization and Trade
• GEOG 422: Urban Geography: Cities in Global Context
• GEOG 460: Food Systems and Emerging Markets

Economic geography, environment and planning, sustainable economies, agriculture, food, wine, and complexity.

I am interested in the problem of sustainability from a regional, industry and community perspective. On one level, I research how industries are structured. For example, my wine research explores the extent to which we can talk of a cohesive industrial region when we talk about the wine industry in Napa and Sonoma counties, while my dairy research has looked into how the preservation of industry through environmental intiatives has generated innovations in products and farming practices.

On a second level, my research looks at how learning and skill development occur within regions. I ask questions like what kind of learning processes enable vineyard managers and winemakers to become and remain innovative and successful in their chosen fields and how might the place-based practices or conventions of industry shape the types of learning that are possible?  My article about agro-industrial conventions in the Geographical Journal touches on this theme.

On a third level, my work looks at community engagement specifically around environmental issues. Here I am interested in how entrepreneurs, industries, companies, and communities respond to and engage with environmental goals and values. How do community concerns, ideals and activism become incorporated into planning and industry practices?  Is the region part of this process? If so, how might community engagement figure into innovation and regional learning within industries?  And how might multiple stakeholders engage in a process of increasing sustainable development within specific places.

Topical interests within the three above areas include the wine, beer, dairy, poultry and the broader food industries, particularly people interested in local and other forms of alternative food production.

For the past several years, I have been working on a community garden on the CSUSM campus -- dubbed "The Food Project". The purpose of the Sustainable Food Project is to provide students a hands-on learning experience in urban agriculture and it's been featured in a number of publications like San Diego Magazine's Feature on the Food Project.  The project relates directly to my work on alternative food economies and on integrating organizations and place where we are working through the complexities of connecting multiple stakeholders to the local ecology in support of sustainability.   In 2019, Professor Gabriel Valle and I received a grant from the CSU Chancellor's Office to expand the Food Project to service student basic needs by providing fresh produce to the Cougar Pantry.  We are also planning to expand this work to include cooking demonstrations in Spring 2020.   Lots of things are happening in the Food Project. Come and visit!

 

Gabriel Valle and Greig Tor Guthey, 2023. Food Aparthied in California and Beyond.  Report for the Center for California Studies, CSU Sacramento.

Greig Tor Guthey, 2021. Notes from a field: Reflections on Space, Gardening and Student Learning in Sourthern California. California Geographer, Volume 60.

Greig Tor Guthey, 2017.  Review of Inequality and the 1%, AAG Review of Books 5(1) 2017: 20-22.

Greig Guthey. 2015.  Review of The Atlas of California: Mapping the Challenges of a New Era by Richard Walker and Suresh Lodha. Berkeley: UC Press.  Journal of San Diego History.

Greig Tor Guthey, Gail Whiteman, and Michael Elmes, 2014.  Place and Sense of Place: Implications for Organizational Studies of Sustainability. Journal of Management Inquiry.

Greig Tor Guthey, 2013.  Review of Robin Grossinger, Napa Valley Historical Ecology Atlas:Exploring a Hidden Landscape of Transformation and Resilience in Agricultural History.

Greig Tor Guthey and Gail Whiteman, 2009. Social and Ecological Transitions: Winemaking in Northern California. Emergence: Complexity and Organizations.

Greig Tor Guthey, 2008. Agro-industrial Conventions: Some Evidence from Northern California's Wine Industry. The Geographical Journal 174 (2): 138-148.

Adina Merenlender, Lynn Huntsinger, Greig Guthey, and Sally Fairfax, 2004. Land Trusts and Conservation Easements: Who is Conserving What for Whom? Conservation Biology 18 (1): 65-76.

Greig Tor Guthey, Lauren Gwin, and Sally Fairfax. 2003. Creative Preservation in California's Dairy Industry. The Geographical Review 93 (2): 171¿192.

Greig Guthey, 2001. Mexican Places in Southern Spaces. In Arthur Murphy et al. 2001. Latino Workers in the Contemporary South. Athens: University of Georgia Press.