This dissertation uses the case of Putin’s Russia to examine how authoritarian regimes build relationships with their societies in a way that strengthens authoritarian rule. In contrast to the existing scholarship, which concentrates on redistributive politics, that is, on the autocrat’s capacities to buy the loyalty of the masses, I...
How do creative producers make their works, and how do their social interactions within creative industries shape the creative process? This study addresses these questions by drawing upon two years of ethnographic fieldwork and over 100 interviews with artists, dealers, curators, collectors, and art advisers in the New York City...
Using interviews and friendship mapping with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and ally (LGBTQ+) community members as well as ethnographic observations, this dissertation analyzes post-gay LGBTQ community in River City, a small, Midwestern city. My findings reveal a formation I call ambivalent community: even as participants express a desire for...
This is a study of the conduct and consumption of statistical medical research HIV/AIDS clinics in the context of the expansion of domestic and international clinical research and evidence-based medicine. Evidence-based medicine is the most recent and most successful attempt at subjecting medical decisions to statistical measurement and control. The...
Classifying patients to diagnose and treat disease, ensure access to medical care, adhere to standards of quality, contain costs, and fulfill contractual obligations is critical to the delivery of healthcare. While classification is a fundamental standardizing process in healthcare, as a social process it is the product of negotiations, organizational...
Over the last 35 years, discourse on "diversity" has become commonplace in many U.S. institutions. My research interrogates diversity as a racialized political project, focusing on the organizational uses of diversity discourse. I base my analysis on case studies of a public university, a Fortune 500 company, and a city...
Drawing on seven years of ethnographic fieldwork, as well as interviews, crime statistics, and census data, this study documents the demolition and redevelopment of a predominately African-American housing development in Chicago. I describe how living in a hypersegregated, high crime neighborhood affects the way residents use, affectively feel, and navigate...
This dissertation develops a war-centered theory of collectivist regimes. I argue that in a large-scale industrial war of coalition alliances, belligerent nations launch extensive programs of economic mobilization and establish centralized bureaucratic institutions of economic regulation. Because exterior states are likely to restrict interior states in their access to the...
This dissertation studies the organizing local approach to labor renewal, a union model centered on organizing new workers. I examine the role of activists and what motivates them to participate beyond a rational evaluation of gains. Additionally, I establish the conditions for successful union reform, specifically, how to overcome inertial...
This dissertation is a multi-method study of the relocation process under the Chicago Housing Authority's implementation of federal redevelopment policies intended to decrease the racial and economic isolation of public housing tenants. It combines quantitative and spatial analysis of program administrative data, interviews with 'expert respondents,' and qualitative semi-structured interviews...