Brian Kelly

 
Brian Kelly, a  white man of Polish and Irish heritage, received his B.S. in Economics fromthe University of Pennsylvania, with a concentration in Local Development in a Globalized Society. He then spent one year in Guatemala as a human rights accompanier, using his international/racial privilege as a deterrent against politically motivated violence. In rural Guatemala he was inspired by community-driven action on the part of returned refugees to govern their community. In the mountains of Huehuetenango he was faced with the question, What does economic development look like when there is limited infrastructure, limited state involvement, and a limited cash economy? Upon returning to Philadelphia, Brian began work on the community planning and organizing project known as Shared Prosperity, which takes an asset-based community development approach to ensure just and equitable development that is simultaneously people- and place-based. He is an M.S. candidate in the Community Development and Applied Economics program at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, where his primary research focuses on just distribution of economic rents associated with natural resources, specifically looking at the governance of groundwater resources in Vermont. Additional areas of interests include how the structure of the monetary system corresponds to persistence of economic growth doctrine and how social justice memes spread through society.