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Urban Ethnography Lab

Urban Ethnography Lab

Supporting Qualitative and Ethnographic Research at the University of Texas at Austin

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Summer Fellowships

Each spring, based on availability of funds, the Urban Ethnography Lab offers small grants to support ethnographic and qualitative research conducted over the summer.

In 2022, the Lab supported nine students:

Matthew Blanton

Alison Coffey

Jaime Hsu

Allison Lang

Annie Murphy

Elizabeth Nimmons

Águeda Ortega

Bradley Silberzahn

Sercan Tas

 

In 2020, the Lab supported five students:

Faith Deckard, “Thinking Like A Bondsman: Risk Assessment and Valuation”
Cash bail, or conditioning release from jail on ones’ ability to pay, is a controversial practice. In the current wave of momentum surrounding justice reform more broadly, commercial bondsman have become scapegoats and are depicted in the media as the number one enemy of bail reform.  Interested in how bondsmen approached their work (i.e. made decisions about who to loan money to) and how they made sense of what they do, especially in an increasingly critical environment, I spent the summer conducting phone interviews with agents across counties within Texas.

Eldad Levy, “Security Entrepreneurs”
My project follows the emergence of private security expertise in Mexico City. I track the establishment of formal and informal security professions such as guards, supervisors, technicians, risk analysts and intelligence agents in the security sector in Mexico. In my preliminary results I have found that inequality, informality and clientelistic relations shapes the ability to produce professional security services, perpetuating the frustration and fear of insecurity for the Mexican middle and upper classes.

Dominque Scott-Garrett, (project description coming soon)

Patrick Sheehan, “Aging in Tech”
My current research focuses on aging in the workplace using a case study of the tech industry. I am exploring cross-national comparisons to figure out what kinds of structural and organizational variations influence how age and experience are evaluated at work.

Erika Slaymaker, “Trans Political Shifts: Historical Context and Social Movement Building”
In this project, I trace the history and development of transgender or “trans” political organizing within the US. I have begun to interview activists who entered into trans politics in different periods or phases of transgender organizing to outline how social context has shaped their political work.  As this project develops, I will delineate political discourses and strategies that emerge from these different periods of trans social movements and I will attend to how trans identity is constructed through this organizing.

UEL News

  • Book Talk & Graduate Student Workshop with Yuval Feinstein – Rally ‘Round the Flag: The Search for National Honor and Respect in Times of Crisis March 9, 2022
  • Congratulations to UEL Fellow Faith Deckard & Javier Auyero on their recent paper in Annual Review of Sociology! March 9, 2022
  • Book Salon: Anima Adjepong’s Afropolitan Projects: Redefining Blackness, Sexualities, and Culture from Houston to Accra January 24, 2022
  • LA Times Op-Ed by Ethnography Lab Affiliate Michael Sierra-Arévalo January 5, 2022
  • Loïc Wacquant’s Body and Soul: Preface to the Expanded Anniversary Edition October 20, 2021

UEL Beyond Academia

Diamond, Alex and Pedro Arenas. 2020. “Campesinos de Briceño le exigen al Gobierno que cumpla con la sustitución de coca.” El Espectador.

Levy, Eldad. “The Urban Iron Fist: Reflections on the Murder of George Floyd.” Op-Ed, Behevrat Haadam 6.21.2020 [Hebrew]

Levy Eldad. “Violence and the social disintegration of Mexico.” Op-Ed, Open Democracy 7.18.2017 [English]

Levy, Eldad. “México se ha desintegrado como Estado soberano por la guerra.” Op-Ed, SinEmbargo 7.20.2017 [Spanish]

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  • Home
  • People
    • Faculty Affiliates
    • Graduate Fellows
    • Honors and Awards
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Projects
    • Suggested Readings
    • Portraits of Latin America
    • Invisible in Austin
  • Training
    • Workshops
    • Summer Fellowships
    • Coursework
    • Apply to be a Fellow
  • Publications
  • Pictures from the Field