Join us for the third event in our Speaker Series on Migration, Racialization, and Inequality, featuring Jennifer A. Jones. She will present her talk, “Organizing for Inclusion? Race-Making and the Quest for Immigrant Rights in the U.S. South.”
This event will be held in a hybrid format. Lunch will be served at 11:45 AM in Dodson Room. The lecture will start at 12:15 PM and wrap up at 1:45 PM.
For in-person attendance, please register by February 5, 2025. Please arrive on time (11:45 AM) to ensure your spot.
Abstract
In recent decades, immigrant-serving organizations have emerged as crucial lifelines for immigrants and have become increasingly central players in immigration politics. While researchers have studied these organizations’ role in individual and policy outcomes, less attention has been paid to their role in shaping racial formation processes. Drawing on archival, ethnographic, and interview data, this project delves into the organizing efforts of groups across the U.S. South. Focusing on two key cases, we show how organizations mobilize race in their work, affecting both the racialization of new immigrant arrivals and macro-level public policies.
About Jennifer A. Jones
Jennifer Jones is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. Her research lies at the intersection of the sociology of race, immigration, and politics. Throughout her scholarship, she examines how race “works”, exploring the relationship between categorical ascription (e.g., checking a box, or how one is perceived) and meaning-making (e.g., identity, or feeling a sense of group belonging). Jones’s work can be found in such journals as the American Journal of Sociology, International Migration Review, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Mobilization. Her first monograph, The Browning of the New South, was released by the University of Chicago Press in 2019.
