Patrick Bigger is a PhD student with interests in Political Economy, Political Ecology, and the role of the state in formulating and stabilizing markets. He has a BA in Geography from the University of Arizona (2005), and an MA in Geography from the University of Kentucky (2009). His Master’s thesis looked at the elaboration of forms of capitalism recognizable as Neoliberal in London, Kentucky.  In particular, it  emphasized the differences in scholarly and popular notions of scale and their material repercussions, and the plurality of modes of production that can exist in small urban areas. His dissertation research will focus on the discourses and practices of Carbon Trading in North American and Europe or Australia. Of particular interest are the ways in which initial prices are calculated in these markets, the fungibility of qualitatively different economic activities which emit carbon but are subsumed into carbon credits, and the spatial variation in carbon mitigation and trading practices. Patrick also has strong interests in critical pedagogy and Marxist social theory and political economy.