Psychological knowledge pervades every facet of modern life. From managing global companies and nation states to choosing romantic partners and career paths, people turn to psychological experts to provide them with the best, most current, scientific solutions. The promise of American psychology is the belief that human thought and behavior...
This dissertation is a mixed-methods study of municipal building inspections in Chicago. Existing literature demonstrates links between housing, urban governance, perceptions of dilapidated buildings, and racial and economic stratification. Less is known, however, about the intermediary actors who work at the nexus of on-the-ground interpretative processes and city-wide regulation. Building...
This dissertation examines how the experience of migration and the context of reception influences religious ideas and practices. Using the experience of two branches of a Colombian Evangelical church, one in Miami, Florida and one in Madrid, Spain, I explore the extent to which context of reception and the experiences...
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...