Caroline Tracey Awarded 2024 On the Brinck | Places Prize

Places Editors

December 19, 2024

Left: Caroline Tracey; Right: John Brinckerhoff Jackson, Highway, NM, undated. [Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico, Collection of J. B. Jackson Pictorial Materials from Various Sources. Resource identifier 000-866-10-043]

We are pleased to announce that Caroline Tracey has been chosen as the recipient of the inaugural On the Brinck | Places Prize, a collaboration between the On the Brinck program at the School of Architecture + Planning at University of New Mexico and Places Journal.

The prize supports ambitious public scholarship focused on the Southwestern region of what is now the United States, extending the goals of the SA+P’s On the Brinck Book Awards in the spirit of the great landscape writer and critic John Brinckerhoff Jackson. The jury for this inaugural award comprised three faculty members at University of New Mexico — Catherine Harris, associate professor of landscape architecture; Elspeth Iralu, assistant professor of Indigenous planning; and Albert José-Antonio López, assistant professor of architectural and planning history, along with Nancy Levinson, editor/executive director, and Frances Richard, senior editor, at Places.

Tracey is an independent journalist based in Arizona. She holds a PhD in geography from UC Berkeley and has been the recipient of numerous journalism fellowships, grants, and awards. Her project for the On the Brinck | Places Prize will focus on the Sanctuary Movement, and the entangled histories of immigration, colonization, and religion along the U.S./Mexico borderlands.

“The prize jury reviewed many excellent candidates, and we were thrilled with the proposal from Caroline Tracey, which rose to the top as the inaugural winner of the On the Brinck | Places Prize,” said Robert Alexander González, dean of the School of Architecture + Planning. “This prize aims to honor and continue the legacy of J.B. Jackson, a commitment we’ve made at the School with the On the Brinck Book Prize and Award Lecture. Our burgeoning collaboration with Places Journal gives us the opportunity to explore exciting new work that will further critical scholarship on the American Southwest, and beyond.”

As recipient of the On the Brinck | Places Prize, Tracey will produce a major work of public scholarship, to be published in Places, and a related public lecture, to be presented at the School of Architecture + Planning.