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I’m Mia Karisa Dawson, an urban human geographer and community organizer. Since recieving my doctorate in Geography with an emphasis in African American studies in 2023 from the University of California, Davis, I received postdoctoral awards from the University of California and University of Maryland systems. I research joint crises in housing, policing, and incarceration in U.S. cities and the responses through which abolitionist organizations address these crises.

For my doctoral research, I focused on the intersections of race, policing, and property that structure urban space in Sacramento, while working in community partnerships to elucidate practices of direct action, mutual aid, and autonomy that forge alternative social structures. I have also worked with the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program on the development of community-based violence interruption programs and alternative first response systems. I have a background in Environmental Justice including efforts towards equity in air and water quality in California.

My work has been published in journals including Urban Geography, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Frontiers in Public Health, and Water Alternatives. I have also collaborated on reports published through the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the UC Davis Center for Regional Change. My work has been supported by organizations including the Mellon Research Initiative on Racial Capitalism, the Society of Women Geographers, the American Association of Geographers, the Mellon Public Scholars Program, the University of Georgia Community Mapping Lab, the Switzer Environmental Leadership Foundation, and the UC Santa Cruz Visualizing Abolition program. Above all, my work is supported by an incredible community of friends, scholars, organizers, and visionaries.