I am an Assistant Professor at the School of International Service at American University. Prior to that, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse. I received my PhD in Sociology from UC Berkeley.

My research examines the livelihoods and lifestyles of men on the urban periphery with a focus on Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. My broad interests are in questions of race and belonging in Africa and the African diaspora, and how “Blackness” operates as a signifier, intersects with gender norms, manifests in popular culture, and illuminates our understanding of political economy. I employ qualitative methods: ethnography, interviews, and visual analysis, and theorize Black masculinity in racial capitalism from Africa and the diaspora broadly. This research has culminated in my book, A man among other men: The crisis of Black masculinity in racial capitalism (Cornell University Press, 2022).

You can read an interview on A man among other men and a book symposium with Jessie Luna, Annie Hikido, A.K.M. Skarpelis, and Yannick Coenders with the American Sociological Association’s Theory section newsletter, Perspectives. You can also read an interview I gave with the Economic Sociology section newsletter, Accounts. Reviews for the book are available with Ethnic and Racial Studies and Gender & Society. Come back for forthcoming symposia with Socio-Economic Review and Sociology of Race and Ethnicity!

Listen to my conversation about the book with Mark Anthony Neal on his Left of Black podcast hosted by Duke University’s John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute. And I enjoyed speaking to Annie Hikido in a conversation hosted by the Ethnographic Café (passcode =iv6J+zu). You can also check out my discussion of Black masculinity and the wage earner ideal on the Big World Podcast at AU’s School of International Service, and a panel on the culture of poverty myth and anti-Blackness that I moderated for the American Sociological Association’s Section on Culture. Finally, listen to my thoughts on decolonizing the sociological canon (beginning 37:20) hosted by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, and in conversation with Michael Burawoy and Freeden Blume Oeur.

For a take on some of my book’s theoretical ideas in earlier form, you can read my Boston Review  article, “Black masculinity under racial capitalism,” and my American Sociological Review (ASR) article, “Racial capitalism and the crisis of black masculinity.”  My ASR article received the 2018 best article award from two American Sociological Association’s Sections: Race, Gender, and Class, and Global and Transnational Sociology. It received an honorable mention from the 2017 American Sociological Association’s Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities.