Marion Werner

Marion Werner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. Her research is located at the nexus of critical development studies, feminist theory, and political economy with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Research
Global trade and food systems regulation: Increasingly, national food systems in the global South are being integrated through trade and investment with agri-business multinationals, primarily based in the global North. Domestic food production in the Caribbean faces significant challenges not only from these market forces, but also from ecological pressures associated with climate change. My current research explores this process through the study of farmers in the Dominican Republic who produce rice for the domestic market and cocoa for the international market. I am also collaborating with an inter-disciplinary group of scholars at my University to explore this problem from the perspective of trade integration and dietary change.

In 2018, I co-authored a report on the challenges facing rice farmers in the Dominican Republic in the context of trade liberalization under a free trade agreement with the United States and five Central American countries (in English and Spanish).

Geographies of exclusion in the global economy: The promise of global trade includes the expansion of jobs and industries to new places. As more countries have entered the global trading system, however, incorporation into export production has become harder, as more workers experience the effects of poorer job quality and job loss.

My book, Global Displacements: The making of uneven development in the Caribbean, explores the process of global industrial restructuring through a grounded ethnography of displaced garment workers in the Dominican Republic.