Sociology Faculty

Summary of Expertise

Naya Jones PhD (she/her/hers) is a critical geographer and cultural worker. Along with research on embodied approaches to teaching and method, she studies Black geographies of community-led health, ecologies, and healing in North and Latin America. She devotes particular attention to how these geographies feel, and to how feeling matters for collective thriving and movement-building. Often in collaboration with health and healing practitioners, she engages a range of methods such as oral history, ritual arts and performance, and close readings of archival and creative texts. 

As a Blaxicana scholar-cultural worker (African-American and Xicana), archiving and reimagining "old ways" or traditional medicine with community members is central to Dr. Jones' research practice. She consistently grapples with questions of race/racism and racial/ancestral trauma, "tradition" and place. Prior to returning to academe, she facilitated workshops and consulted for BIPOC-led organizations as they mobilized mind/body practices and traditional knowledge in their justice work. Along with grounding in critical theory, this training and background informs her approach to research. 

Currently, Dr. Jones is working on a manuscript and creative project about African-American botanical knowledge and the Great Migration, and she continues creative work on racial trauma and Black food sovereignty. She is also collaborating on a pedagogy project about Afro-Latinx migrant health. Her work has been supported by Culture of Health Leaders (a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), the American Association of Geographers, the Garden Club of America (Anne S. Chatham Fellowship in Medicinal Botany), and the Wisconsin Arts Board. 

Research Interests

Black geographies of community health and healing; African-American and Afro-Latinx Studies; Black ecologies; Black botany; race/racism and health; traditional and indigenous ecological knowledge; spirituality and justice; food sovereignty; critical pedagogy; arts-based methods

Biography, Education and Training

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Primary Care Research, Medical College of Wisconsin, 2018

PhD, Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, 2016

MA, Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 2008

Selected Publications

Jones, N. 2020. Intervention: Corner Stores, Surveillance, and All Black Afterlives. Antipode Online. Open Access>>

Jones, N. 2019. Dying to Eat? Black Food Geographies of Slow Violence and Resilience. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies,18 (5), 1076-99. Open Access>> 

·     Cotter, E, and Jones, N. 2019. Review of Latino/Latinx Participants in Mindfulness-Based Intervention Research. Mindfulness, 11

Thomas, KD and Jones, N. 2019. Critical Reflexivity: Teaching About Race and Racism in the Advertising Classroom. Advertising & Society Quarterly, 20 (2)

Jones, N. 2019. Revisiting the Corner Store: Black Youth, Food Geographies, and Gentrification. In Race in the Marketplace: Crossing Critical Boundaries, Johnson, GD, Thomas, KD, Harrison, A, Grier, SA. (Eds.) Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Currently Open Access>>

Jones, N. 2018. “It Tastes Like Heaven”: Critical Food Pedagogy with Black Youth in the Anthropocene. Policy Futures in Education, 17(7), 905-923.  

Further publications

Selected Exhibitions

Virtual Exhibit & Article: Dying to Eat? Black Food Geographies of Slow Violence and Resilience

Selected Recordings

The Checkout // Podcast Interview On Food Sovereignty and Collective Healing