My research examines migration, borders, race, labor, and capitalism from a historical-materialist perspective. Across a range of empirical and theoretical projects, I explore how capitalism shapes patterns of mobility, labor incorporation, citizenship, and social difference. Much of this work is concerned with the historical production of categories such as race, nationality, and migrant illegality and with the role these categories play in organizing labor markets, political institutions, and everyday social life.
My current research falls into two broad areas: social theory and political economy; and migration, labor, borders, and citizenship.
My theoretical work explores the relationship between race, class, capitalism, and historical change. I am particularly interested in how social differences such as race, nationality, and citizenship emerge, persist, and are transformed under capitalism. Drawing on Marxism, historical sociology, and political economy, I examine debates concerning racial capitalism, Black Marxism, Du Bois scholarship, ideology, and social differentiation.
Recent publications and projects include:
The Antinomies of Black Marxism: A Critique of the Racial Capitalism Paradigm (Routledge, 2026)
The Race Fetish and the Crisis of Global Capitalism (forthcoming, Ethnic and Racial Studies)
The Borders of Capital: Capitalism and the (Re)Production of Difference (book manuscript)
Marxism and the Color Line (working title), an edited interview volume co-developed with former students Reuben Kadushin (New York University) and Seth Jeter (University of Chicago).
Taken together, these projects seek to understand how race, class, and other forms of social difference are produced historically and how they shape the development of modern societies.
My research on migration and labor examines how capitalist development structures labor mobility, citizenship, and migrant incorporation. Drawing on historical sociology, political economy, and migration studies, this work explores how borders function not simply as territorial boundaries but as mechanisms for regulating labor, producing legal and illegal populations, and differentiating workers.
Recent and ongoing projects include:
Help (Un)Wanted: Immigrant Labor and the Meat Processing Industry in the New South (book manuscript)
Beyond "Racialized Citizenship": A Historical Materialist Approach to the Study of Race and Citizenship (Science & Society)
Seeing Like an (Undocumented) Immigrant: Understanding Borders and Migration from the Migrant Perspective (ASA Annual Meeting, 2026)
Research on migration, borders, citizenship, migrant labor, and return migration.