Fonna Forman is Associate Professor of Political Science and Founding Director of the Center on Global Justice at the University of California, San Diego. A political theorist best known for her revisionist research on Adam Smith, her work focuses on recuperating the ethical, spatial and public dimensions of his thought. Since 2009 she has served as Editor of the Adam Smith Review, the premier international journal of Smith’s thought.
Forman’s work engages the intersection of ethics, public culture, urban policy and the city – with a special focus on border ethics, climate justice and equitable urbanization. Forman partners closely with UCSD Visual Arts Professor and architect, Teddy Cruz, leading a variety of urban and public research agendas in the San Diego-Tijuana border region and beyond. From 2012-14 they served as special advisors on civic and urban initiatives for the City of San Diego and led the development of its Civic Innovation Lab. Together they lead the UCSD Community Stations, a network of field stations across the border region, designed for collaborative research and pedagogy on poverty, environmental justice and social equity.
Forman also partners closely with renowned UCSD-Scripps climate scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan on the social impacts of climate change, including serving as Vice Chair of the 2015 University of California Bending the Curve report on climate change solutions; papers on “climate migration” and ‘climate justice’ for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences / Social Sciences (Vatican); and several high-profile policy collaborations on climate change solutions and climate education.
Forman is an advocate for engaged social science, and university-community research partnerships. From 2014-2018, Forman was appointed by British PM Gordon Brown to the Global Citizenship Commission, advising UN policy on human rights in the 21st century.
Research Interests: Political theory, Adam Smith studies, Climate justice, Participatory urbanisation and public space, Borders and citizenship, Public culture.
| Institution: | University of California San Diego |
| Fields of Expertise: | Borders Democracy and Political Participation Environmental Politics and Policy Social Movements and Political Mobilization |
| Research groups: | Democracy/Populism/Nationalism |
| Email: | ffb@ucsd.edu |
| Media outreach: | Yes |
| Languages: | Catalan, English, French, Spanish |
| Publications: | Fonna Forman, Adam Smith Public and Private: Latin American Legacies, manuscript. Fonna Forman and Teddy Cruz, The Political Equator: Unwalling Citizenship. London: Verso, forthcoming 2021. Fonna Forman and Teddy Cruz, Top-Down / Bottom-Up: The Political and Architectural Practice of Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman. Berlin: Hatje Cantz, forthcoming. https://www.hatjecantz.de/top-down-bottom-up-7128-1.html?article_id=7128&clang=1 Fonna Forman, Adam Smith and the Circles of Sympathy: Cosmopolitanism and Moral Theory (Ideas in Context 96). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/adam-smith-and-the-circles-of-sympathy/8C243FED421BA15BF0672EB9155D5212 Fonna Forman, Brooke Acklerly, Luis Cabrera, Genevieve Fuji-Johnson, Chris Tenove and Antje Weiner, “Unearthing Grounded Normative Theory: Political Theorizing with Those Who Struggle” (under review) Fonna Forman, "Political Equator: Baton Rouge" in Bordering On, eds. Angeliki Sioli and Kris Palagi (under review) Fonna Forman, “Unwalling Citizenship” in Democracies and their Futures, eds. James Tully, Pablo Ouziel, Jeanne Moorefield and David Owen (under review) Fonna Forman and Teddy Cruz, “Ecologies of Exception” in The Routledge Handbook of Architecture, Urban Space and Politics, Vol. II: Ecology, Social Participation and Marginalities, eds. Farzaneh Haghighi and Nikolina Bobic, London: Routledge, forthcoming V. Ram Ramanathan, Fonna Forman and Marcelo M. Surárez-Orozco, et.al “Climate Change, Wellness and Education: Bending the Curve Education Project,” in Education: The Global Compact, eds. Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo and Jeffrey Sachs. New York: Columbia University Press, forthcoming. |
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