Research

Broadly speaking, the corpus of my scholarly work is a sociology of the margins. My research in various substantive areas all draws on micro-sociology to excavate the lived experiences of marginalized people and engage critical analyses of how structural and institutional forces (including laws and policies) act to shape and reinforce their marginal location. In this sense, I am interested not just in the people who exist at the margins of our society, excluded from dominant discourse, but how society is structured and operates to maintain hegemonic privilege at their expense. My research across my career with sex workers and families affected by crime and incarceration has focused on marginalization as a gendered experience, but my work also cuts across race and class disparities, drawing on an intersectional framing.

Information and links to select publications can be found at link below

Research Gate Profile

Structural Stigma

My published paper on structural stigma can be understood as a summation of the analytical approach used across much of my scholarly work. The concept of structural stigma moves beyond traditional micro-level conceptions of stigma and takes into consideration how institutional discourses and stereotypes work to marginalize entire groups of people. I argue that the discourse of risk management and logics of prediction are used to legitimize intervention, surveillance, and control of marginal individuals, whether or not they pose a real putative risk. This theoretical understanding of the intersections of structural and symbolic stigma was published in my 2012 co-edited book, Stigma Revisited: Implications of the Mark,

You can find the paper as a PDF below.

Theorizing Stigma and the Politics of Resistance (pdf)Download