Research
As a scholar, I take a critical, intersectional feminist, and interdisciplinary approach to exploring the ways in which sciences (and other forms of knowledge production) technologies, and institutions function in concert to constitute both individuals’ lives and their possibilities – socially, politically, and materially.
I am currently working on two major research projects – Securing Cisgendered Futures and The Matter of Black Life and Death – each of which include a book-length project, as well as additional related articles, presentations, and publications.
Securing Cisgendered Futures
Securing Cisgendered Futures explores the various bioscientific, political, and bureaucratic efforts undertaken within the 21st Century to force individuals into what I call "cisgendered futures," referring to a normalized trajectory of development over the lifespan in which the multiple variables of sex and gender (and sometimes, sexuality) remain in “coherent” alignment. These include the medical management of intersex conditions in infants and small children, the treatment of trans kids with so-called "conversion therapies," and "bathroom bills" that attempt to force individuals to use bathrooms according to the sex they were assigned at birth. I use the word "cisgendered" rather than cisgender to distinguish it from someone's identity (as cisgender, or transgender, or agender, etc.), and to draw emphasis to the various ways we construct that trajectory of development as normal.
Thus far, I have published multiple articles, a book chapter, and given multiple presentations related to this project (information about which can be found on my Publications/Presentations page). I am currently in the process of revising a book-length manuscript for publication out of this project titled Securing Cisgendered Futures: Managing Sex and Gender in the 21st Century.
The Matter of Black Life and Death
This project explores the ways in which the American system of market-based health insurance tied to employment maldistributes life chances to Black individuals in particular, shaping their lives (and deaths) in ways that are debilitating, and disabling. Beginning from an understanding of Black Lives Matter as an anti-eugenic movement (and understanding eugenics to refer broadly to management of the population), it undertakes the politically urgent task of situating and examining the biopolitical functions of the market-based system of health insurance, which regulates access to and the practice of medicine “in the wake” of slavery. This interdisciplinary project draws upon literatures across the sciences and the humanities, including work in critical race theory, black diaspora studies, critical disability studies, philosophy of biology, feminist epistemologies, the medical humanities, and clinical research.
I have already given presentations related to this research, and am at work on a book-length manuscript out of this project titled The Matter of Black Life and Death: Race, Biopolitics, and the American Health Insurance Market.
With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have shifted the focus of my research with regards to this project in order to explore gender and racial disparities related to pandemic. This includes the kinds of gendered and racial disparities seen in COVID-19 exposure, morbidity, and mortality, but also with regards to compliance with social distancing and mask-wearing orders. Video presentations of this research can be found on my Publications/Presentations page.