As an urban ethnographer, he uses fieldwork, historical, and other qualitative methods to investigate the causes, contours, and consequence of contemporary urban poverty. He is particularly interested in how recent large-scale forces—most notably, the massive expansion of the criminal justice system, the global shift to the “new economy,” and rising inequalities in relative exposure to violence-related trauma—influence the ground-level conditions and experiences of disadvantaged communities (e.g., neighborhood culture, public interaction, social cohesion, crime, and violence), and how these forces (re)produce social, economic, and racial inequality. He tries to leverage these historical developments to rethink prevailing concepts and theories.

For more information please visit his faculty profile.