Joseph Scala

PhD
Geography & Environmental Studies

Photo: Joseph Scala


Joseph Scala is a PhD candidate in Geography and Environmental Studies. His research examines the creation and marketization of regional heritage across winemaking landscapes in the US-Mexico borderlands. Situated within political ecology, his doctoral work investigates how regulatory frameworks reshape land access, economic equity, and local social fabrics in Baja California's Valle de Guadalupe and New Mexico's historic wine country. Joseph analyzes how state policies, tourism agendas, and industry actors selectively curate historical narratives to craft marketable heritage brands, often obscuring violent pasts while marginalizing small-scale winemakers. Centrally, his project offers a comparative policy analysis of how political institutions and other stakeholders on both sides of the border actively produce heritage narratives to advance wine-industry development. While Mexico's regulatory structure favors those with greater capital and New Mexico's model leans on heritage tourism, both transform local life in ways that undercut the communities and small-scale producers whose labor and knowledge have long defined these places.