Don Mitchell is a historical geographer whose work also focuses on the present. His two main areas of focus are on the way that capital-labor struggles shape the landscapes that undergird the capitalist political economy and the role of public space in the functioning of Western cities. He has also contributed to developing spatial theories of culture and to theorizing the spatiality of social justice.

Among other works, Mitchell is the author of The Lie of the Land: Migrant Workers and the California Landscape (1996); They Saved the Crops: Labor, Landscape and the Struggle over Industrial Farming in Bracero-Era California (2012); The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space (2003/2014); and Mean Streets: Homelessness, Public Space, and the Limits to Capital (2020). Along with the late Neil Smith, he also co-edited Revolting New York: How 400 Years of Riot, Rebellion, Uprising, and Revolution Shaped a City (2018). Mitchell has held visiting positions at the University of Pennsylvania, the City University of New York, Oslo University, and NTNU Trondheim, and he has received fellowships from the MacArthur, Guggenheim, and Fulbright Foundations.

During his time at SCAS, Mitchell will work on a book tracing how the rise and fall of the United Farm Workers Union in 20th-century California both remade the agribusiness landscape and created the legal and economic framework that 21st-century tech companies like Uber and Door Dash have had to vanquish in order to institute their particular model of gig work in the city.


This information is accurate as of the academic year 2026-27.