Research / published & in progress
States sort people, count them, name them, and tell stories about why the sorting makes sense. I study how those arrangements are built, defended, and contested. A second strand of my work asks how people learn to investigate political problems, including what thoughtfully designed AI tools can contribute.
On the record / selected publications
The arguments that made it into print.
Politics & Policy · 2014
Legalizing undocumented status can help governments collect information, regulate labor markets, and uphold the rule of law. It can also make the limits of migration control more visible. I examine the gap between a state’s practical capacity and its appearance of sovereignty.
42(2), 187–220.
Journal of International Migration and Integration · 2015
Drawing on fieldwork, interviews, and documents, I trace how exclusionary government rhetoric and restrictions on work and services helped create the conditions for mobilization against asylum seekers. The resulting backlash was directed at migrants and at the government itself.
16(4), 1231–1254. First published online September 13, 2014; published in the 2015 journal volume.
Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas · 2013
An essay from Sh’ma’s issue on Israel and the status quo.
43, pp. 3–5 · June 2, 2013. The publisher’s archive is currently intermittent. The issue index is linked below.
On the desk / work in progress
Questions I am still working through. Open a project for the longer version.
01Research in progress
What does remembering antiquity allow a city to forget?
02Research theme
Who gets counted, and what does the counting do?
03Writing in development
When does knowing something become a problem for belonging?
04Article in progress / bot design
What should the bot do, and what must the learner still do?
05Article in progress / student experience
When does a helpful conversation become another assignment to get through?
06Course in development
Why do we comply, and when do we stop?
07Learning experiments
What changes when a concept explains something you just did?
Where some of these questions started
My 2015 doctoral dissertation examined nation building and immigration policies in Catalonia, Israel, and Quebec. Different places, related arguments about who “we” are.
Earlier academic CV Talk about a project