Doctoral Candidate
About
What holds people loyal to political institutions, even in the face of inequality, exclusion, or violence?
I study how political systems make people feel like they belong, and how that sense of belonging reshapes and reinforces the very systems that govern them. My research asks how national ideologies and recognition — both symbolic and material — structure political loyalty, and how people respond through claims on the state.
Grounding theories of nationalism, identity, and recognition in both comparative and American politics, I explore how minority groups negotiate their relationship to the state: be it clientelist ties in Southeast Asia, immigration preferences among Latino Americans, or the historical memory of racialized violence among Black Americans.
In my work, I ask not just who receives resources, but who is seen to belong. I examine how national and group identities are made and remade through political exchange — and how national ideology and recognition draw the boundary between those folded into the nation and those consigned to its edges.
