MSDUE Class of 2016–
Interdisciplinary scholar, activist, and freelance designer, writer and editor.

PhD student in Anthropology and Urban Planning, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Tait (they/them) is an interdisciplinary scholar, activist, and freelance designer, writer and editor from New York City but currently living in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Tait earned a BA in Environmental Studies from the New College of Florida in 2012, writing a later-published thesis on polar bear sport hunting, international conservation law and indigenous rights. After moving back to NYC, Tait enrolled in the MSDUE at Parsons. They graduated in 2016 with a multimedia thesis (co-produced with Gamar Markarian) that used filmmaking, ethnography, historical research and mapping to study rural-urban potato and value circulation in Ecuador, historical regimes of property ownership and an emerging solidarity network between Quito’s public markets. While attending Parsons, Tait also worked on various other research and design projects, including research into drug use and labor in queer nightlife with the Chemical Youth Project (based at the University of Amsterdam) and mapping global evictions with the International Alliance of Inhabitants. Tait’s academic work has been published in Global Ecology and Conservation, Contemporary Drug Problems, Cultural Anthropology, and Progress in Human Geography; their multimedia and design work has been exhibited at the New School’s Aronson Galleries and elsewhere; and their non-academic writing has appeared in Mask Magazine, the Indypendent, and numerous zines.

In 2017, they moved to the Netherlands, where they have been working on a PhD in Anthropology / Urban Planning at the University of Amsterdam, to be completed in 2020. Their dissertation explores the role of the beer economy in Amsterdam’s urbanization, focusing on the interconnections between the production of bodies, natures, spaces and capital. Their general academic interests include urban political ecology, issues of socio-spatial justice, science and technology studies and agri-food studies.

Tait writes: “The intention of my academic and activist practice is to foster the production of spaces alternative to those of capital accumulation, from affordable housing in Brooklyn to a radical queer resistance festival in Amsterdam. At Parsons, I learned how to pair my qualitative research skills with design and mapping tools through projects on affordable housing and community mobility.”

Personal Links:

CV