Christine Knott

Biography

I received my PhD in Sociology from Memorial University in 2017. Prior to joining Laurier, I was an assistant professor at San Diego State University in the Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

My current research projects center on the social-ecological dimensions of the fisheries and aquaculture industries in the United States, Mexico, and Norway, of which labour migration, mobility, and climate justice are a central focus. By drawing on existing feminist scholarship and anti-oppressive intersectional frameworks, I explore how ecological, economic, technological, political, and corporate influences (across multiple scales) reconfigure ocean spaces and coastal communities in unequal ways. These explorations allow me to investigate interactions among labour mobility regimes, resource-dependent communities, government policies, global corporate capitalism, and animal enclosure and commodification. Environmental concerns and regulation of the fishery relate not only to employment opportunities connected to mobility/immobility, but also to the spatial reorganization of communities and resources. Therefore, my most recent research examines how past, new, and emerging blue economy (i.e., ocean-based industries such as fisheries and offshore wind) policies, practices, and processes challenge or reinforce systems of inequities and oppression.