Globalization · Political Economy · Development · Social Inequality · Social Justice · Social Change · Fair Trade · Sustainable Agriculture · Rural Sociology · Action Research · Knowledge Democracy · Decolonial Praxis

Profile
Assistant Professor, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University
Senior Sustainability Scholar, Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University
Chair, Section on Sociology of Development, American Sociological Association



I am a sociological action researcher with expertise in sustainable, participatory, and emancipatory development.  As a scholar-practitioner who has worked in emerging economies and post-authoritarian states, I am well grounded in critical social theory and skilled in the use of qualitative and participatory research methods.

My scholarship advances development theory and practice in three key ways. First, I work with scholarly and grassroots communities to identify and solve problems. By documenting the crosscutting power dynamics informing development in action, my work unpacks structural, relational, and knowledge-based barriers to innovation and change. Second, I inform action research methodology by designing methods for interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge democratization. Third, my research connects the philosophical discourse on development ethics with critical reflections of practice to improve standards for engagement.

My current scholarship is focused on the ethical and political dilemmas of development. Ethics for Development Research (forthcoming in Sociology of Development) is the first of four article projects on development ethics. This study engages a wide ranging discourse to develop a common set of principles for planning, conducting, and evaluating research across disciplines. I also am working on two book projects that problematize the politics of sustainability. The first of these is a volume on energy and democracy that I am co-editing with Majia Nadesan and Martin Pasqualetti. The second is a solo-authored comparative historical book. Engaging the cases of post-Soviet Latvia and post-Apartheid South Africa, "Transformative Societies" queries the role of cultural worldviews in generating democratic social change, with particular focus on the Indigenous value systems informing anti-authoritarian resistance movements, national transitions to democracy, and post-authoritarian sustainable development agendas.

"Transformative Societies" builds from my previous fieldwork in post-Apartheid South Africa and post-Soviet Latvia. In 2010, I worked with South African rooibos tea farmers to co-develop a participatory research, training, and networking initiative. As part of my inquiry, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork with a team of community-based farmer leaders. Our work resulted in a ‘participatory commodity networking’ approach to Fairtrade research and producer support. It also established a multi-paradigmatic foundation for sociopolitical analysis. In 2005, I conducted qualitative mixed methods research in post-Soviet Latvia. Having first worked in the country as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I returned under a Fulbright grant to examine the impacts of European integration on Latvia's organic farming movement. My study found significant growth in the number of farms undergoing organic conversion as well as a strategic shift in movement identity from organic farming to local food.

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Education
PhD, Sociology, Colorado State University
MA, International Development and Social Change, Clark University
BA, Anthropology and French, University of Utah

Languages
English, native
French, excellent
Latvian, very good speaking ability
Afrikaans, good speaking ability
Spanish, elementary communication skills