Ginette Wessel
Associate Professor of Architecture, RWU
Faculty Spotlight
"Mobilizing Food Vending"
Faculty Spotlight
Lecture: Wednesday, February 26, 2025 | 6:00PM | ARCH 132 DF Pray Lecture Theatre
The Book ‘Mobilizing Food Vending’ ( Routledge, 2024) investigates the gourmet food truck movement in the United States and provides a clearer understanding of the social and economic factors that shape vendor autonomy and industry growth. The volume features case studies in a variety of American cities and uses top-down and bottom-up urban theory to frame a discussion of food trucks’ rights, displacement, and resiliency. Using ethnographic and archival research collected from industry experts, the book examines vendors’ operational strategies, their regulatory challenges when navigating the city, and their economic, cultural, and political roles in shaping urban space. ‘Mobilizing Food Vending’ argues that food truck vendors are critical actors that support local economies and contribute to the public realm while shaping regulatory policy from the bottom up.
Ginette Wessel, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Roger Williams University, where she teaches courses in urban design, urban planning, and environmental design research. As an urbanist, designer, and scholar, Ginette has published articles in the Journal of the American Planning Association, New Media & Society, and the Journal of Urban Design, as well as chapters in Food Trucks, Cultural Identity, and Social Justice (MIT Press 2017) and Participatory Urbanisms (UC Berkeley 2015). Her book, Mobilizing Food Vending: Gourmet Food Trucks in the American City (Routledge 2025), investigates food trucks’ rights and resiliency in the urban foodscape using ethnography, policy analysis, and spatial interpretation. Her co-authored book Social Media and the Contemporary City (Routledge 2022) explores the interplay of communication technology, social life, and urban development using real-time data analysis. Her research interests include current social and cultural transformations underway in city making—with an emphasis on public space, social equity, and communication technology. She holds degrees from the University of California (UC), Berkeley, and the University of North Carolina (UNC), Charlotte, and she is an experienced urban designer who has worked with communities throughout her teaching at RWU, San Jose State University, UC Berkeley, and UNC Charlotte
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