Areas of interest: race and ethnic relations, Latino immigration, development.
My work focuses on two areas. The first is identity and group formation, with a focus on processes of racialization, and ethnic and nation formation. I have published numerous articles on ethnic and racial identity and transnationalism. I am also the author of "Encountering American Faultlines" (Russell Sage 2009). This book analyzes the the experience of incorporation of the Dominican second generation in Providence, and through that experience it looks at the class and racial faultlines that structure American society.
My second area of interest is alternative forms of economic organization. I am the author of "Developing Poverty" (Penn State Press, 2000). In that book I compare the structure of the informal economy in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic and the relationship between the informal economy and the state. Currently I am writing a book on industrial democracy in Argentina, studying the organizational forms of the worker-owned factories.
Another current project of mine is a book on the sociological theoretical aspects of W.E.B Du Bois work.
I work within the world-system theoretical paradigm, but I am interested in the local variations within the world economic and political systems. I investigate how local and regional institutional forms and identity formation processes develop and interact with world-systemic trends.
