H. Louise Davis

H. Louise Davis's teaching and research interests center around issues of social and environmental justice. She writes and teaches about consumer and charity culture(s), celebrity activism, visual and performance studies, transnational grassroots movements, and ecofeminism. Her current book project examines the ethical dilemmas of capital's corporate food and fuel regimes.

Teaching

Dr. Davis teaches courses centered around social justice, which includes not only serving people in economically disadvantaged communities but ensuring that the education they receive enables them to empower themselves in their everyday lives.

Research

Davis's scholarly work focuses on transatlantic media based activism, social and environmental justice movements, agricultural 'development' in the Global South, ethical consumer culture(s) with an emphasis on the fetishization of both visual and material commodities, and the machinations of the global corporate governance regime. Davis grounds her work in feminist and ecofeminist critical theory, and psychoanalytic theoretical frameworks inform her work on visual representation and interpellation.

She has published a number of articles examining problematic representations of suffering in popular culture and concepts of 'one-worldism' in media driven charity campaigns in Britain and the United States. Her more recent scholarship examines corporate and humanitarian responses to systemic disasters and global crises. She most recently authored a book chapter examining the environmental and economic impact of corporate agribusiness and biofuels that marks a shift into new scholarly territory. The chapter is to be included in Shopping for Change: Consumer Activism in North American History and published by Toronto's Between The Lines press.

Davis is also the co-editor of the forthcoming edited collection The Ecopolitics of Consumption: The Food Trade (2015). In the introduction to this collection, she and co-author Madhudaya Sinha, expand the concept of ecopolitics beyond the study of human degradation of the environment to incorporate discussions of global economic systems, governance, and biotechnologies. In her own article "'He Who Feeds You Will Also Impose His Will on You': Food Sovereignty Versus the Free Market" Davis specifically examines how economic institutions and governments located in the Global North use economic incentives to impose the logic of 'development' upon indebted Southern governments; and illustrates that current Northern approaches to 'development' encourage economic 'growth' at great cost to national infrastructure, natural eco-systems, and food insecure populations.

Other Activities

Davis oversaw the transition of Bachelor of Integrative Studies Program into a Department in 2013, and has continued to develop curriculum and governance while growing the department to six continuing faculty offering 3 majors to over 400 students.

She serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Popular Culture, reviews articles for the Journal of Youth Studies, and sits on the advisory board for the Heritage Studies program at Regis College MA. She is also currently a community organizer for international NGO Oxfam, an organization dedicated to eradicating global poverty, hunger, and injustice.

Davis' current book project, Buying Change: Ethical Consumerism, Environmentalism and the Poor, is greatly informed by both her work with non-traditional student populations living in economically depressed post-industrial cities of the Midwest and with Oxfam. In her monograph, she argues that ethical consumer movements in the North must build alliances with grassroots movements in the South fighting for sovereignty, environmental sustainability, and social justice; in order to redirect the flow of capital and effect significant and permanent change to global corporate governance regimes.

Education

• Ph.D., Michigan State University
• M.A., Michigan State University
• B.A., Roehampton Institute UK