Sociology

Professor Anne Warfield Rawls is one of three principal investigators for “Project P01 - Media of Praxeology I: Multisensory Mediality and Cooperative Practice,” one of 15 projects undertaken by the Special Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1187: Media and Cooperation at the University of Siegen.  

Federally funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the center has received 10 million euros for each of its three research phases. Rawls’ current project is part of Phase III (2024-2027) and examines how tacit practices of social interaction privilege sight and create interactional barriers for Legally Blind persons.    

In her forthcoming book, All Work Is Cultural Work: Diasporic Haitian Women, Paid Labor, and Cultural Citizenship (December 2025, Rutgers University Press), Assistant Professor Nikita Carney provides an in-depth ethnographic study of Haitian women in three locations: Boston, Montreal and Paris.  

Carney spoke with Haitian migrant women in each place, assessing their experiences with work, community and belonging in conjunction with race and class differences. The book promises to make a significant contribution to a growing field of study that is focused on “belonging” as a social and cultural achievement. 

Since joining Bentley’s faculty three years ago, Assistant Professor Ahmad Mohammadpour has been drawing connections between his research on racialization and oppression in the Middle East and the experience of racialized populations in the U.S.  

In his recent article, “The Racial Policies of De-development in the Middle East: A Comparative Study of Palestine and Rojhelat (Eastern Kurdistan),” published in Current Anthropology, Mohammadpour explores how racial, ethnic and religious dynamics perpetuate economic inequality in Iran. Using Rojhelat, a region rich in mineral and natural resources, as an example, he demonstrates how the Iranian state uses economic policy to undermine any potential for a viable future independence and development of its Kurdish population.