Post-Doctoral Fellows : Simone Buechler
Dr. Buechler was an assistant professor/faculty fellow in the Metropolitan Studies Program at New York University.Her research interests include: labor market restructuring, the informal economy, globalization and cities, women and economic restructuring, Brazil, social movements, squatter settlements, and urban planning.She conducted extensive research on the impact of economic globalization on low-income women and urban labor markets in São Paulo, Brazil interviewing low income women in three squatter settlements and low-income neighborhoods, street vendors, sweatshop workers and owners, industrial managers, union activists, government officials at all levels – municipal and federal, NGO practitioners, scholars, and Wall Street bankers.At present she is focusing on questions such as what is the “local” in a global neo-liberal era and have municipal governments, community associations and individual workers become empowered or disempowered with decentralization; who are the social actors who have been or could again influence the impacts of and direction of economic globalization; and how does one measure and conceptualize the informal sector that is very much tied to global economic change?She will begin new research on Brazilian immigrants to Newark, New Jersey with a focus on entrepreneurship, transnationalism and the impact of U.S. immigration policies.She received a Ph.D. from the Urban Planning Department at ColumbiaUniversity where she studied under Saskia Sassen and Peter Marcuse.Before returning to get her Ph.D. Dr. Buechler worked at the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), focusing on women and microcredit, the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development, Women’s World Banking, and Appropriate Technology International.
Select Publications:
“Measuring the Informal Sector in São Paulo, Brazil.”Ch. 13. Informal Economy Micromarket Measurement. Edited by Alyssa Stewart Lee and Friedrich Schneider. Washington.D.C.: Brookings Press.Forthcoming in 2007.
“Daring to Dream: Social Actors Fighting for Labor Rights and Social Justice in São Paulo, Brazil.” Transformative Cities. Edited by Neil Smith and Ida Susser. Boulder, Co.: Paradigm. Forthcoming in 2007.
“The View from the Favela: The Impact of Globalization in São Paulo, Brazil.” Frauensolidarität Nr. 99 (01/07).
“Deciphering the local in a global neoliberal age: Three favelas in São Paulo, Brazil.”In Deciphering the Global. Edited by Saskia Sassen.New York: Routledge Press.2007.
“São Paulo: Outsourcing and Downgrading of Labor in a Globalizing City.” Global City Reader, Edited by Neil Brenner and Roger Keil.New York: Routledge.2006.
“Sweating it in the Brazilian garment industry: Bolivian workers and economic global forces in São Paulo.”Latin American Perspectives.Issue 136. Vol. 31, No. 3, May 2004.
