Research

As a sociologist, my research interests broadly sit at the intersection of urban sociology and race and ethnicity. I am particularly interested in issues surrounding gentrification and urban change, communities and inequality, racial segregation and integration, and race and space.

My first book, “Storefront: Communities, Commercial Gentrification, and the Racialization of Space (University of Georgia Press, Sociology of Race & Ethnicity Series), examines the roles and experiences of locally owned businesses in Pilsen and Logan Square, neighborhoods experiencing gentrification with increasing white populations displacing long-term Latino residents. Using ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with business owners, workers, patrons, and other community members, I explore how local businesses contribute to communities and neighborhood change, racial segregation and integration, and other facets of local social life. A key finding of this research is how business owners may actively or passively produce racially segregated or diverse spaces and that this can shape their relationships with different facets of local communities.

A second line of inquiry examines community assets, development strategies, and rural poverty in three Indiana towns. Dr. Emily Wornell (Ball State University) and I conducted in-depth interviews with local leaders and community members to examine how low-income rural residents make ends meet and how local assets shape residents’ livelihood strategies. We find variation in the type and degree of social distance between local leaders and low income community members, characteristics and histories that associate these towns with whitespaces, and expressions of moral capital that inform beliefs and behaviors about poverty.

My future research will continue to examine issues relating to place, racial and class inequality, and local networks, and the social construction and racialization of urban social problems.