Research
Social Theory
In my book manuscript, I develop the concept of emancipatory visions of the future—the unlikely but still thinkable images of freedom—to understand how images of freedom are constructed in a world where the color line prevents social interaction across groups on either side of it. Emancipatory visions of the future are different from utopic imaginaries, because the goal is not a perfect world, only a more equitable one. This concept centers people who are racialized and denied recognition and how they use this exclusion to construct more equitable images of the future. I apply Du Boisian double consciousness to categorize different types of emancipatory visions of the future that correlate with reactions to the color line. Moreover, I examine how these contending visions of the future influence the direction in which emancipatory social movements unfold.
Book Manuscript in Progress
Dos Santos, Karolina M. "Wards of Action: Emancipatory visions of the future and social change in Newark, New Jersey, 1967-1980" (In Progress)
Image Source: Newark Public Library
Race and Ethnicity
My second stream of research applies Du Boisian sociological methods to examine Puerto Rican racialized subjectivity in urban America. I situate Puerto Rican immigration to the United States mainland in its historical context, relate it to global patterns of American colonialism, and explore how Puerto Ricans renegotiated their racial and class identities in light of their local context within rapidly deindustrializing manufacturing cities. I argue that these changes to Puerto Rican racialized subjectivity influenced their long-term immigration goals and incorporation into American cities. Currently, I am developing a co-authored article that examines this process both on the island and in Newark, New Jersey from 1970 to 1980.
For more information about my race and ethnicity research, see here.
Image Source: "El Boricua Newsletter," (1970) in Amilkar Vélez López papers at the Hispanic Resource Information Center, Newark Public Library
Urban Sociology
I combine my work on sociological theory and race to examine how African Americans and Latinos negotiate their emancipatory visions of the future in relation to one another. I argue that these different emancipatory visions of the future are influenced by how African American and Latino individuals understand the American color line, and their place within it, and how these understandings transform as they move from South (Southern United States and the Global South) to North. The post-industrial city serves as the dynamic backdrop and historical context, or the "field," where these emancipatory visions of the future coexist and contend for dominance. I show that these emancipatory visions of the future both restructure and are structured by the constraints of the post-industrial city.
To read more about this work, see here.
Image Source: Ironbound Community Corporation social mobilizations for environmental justice
Critical Archival Methods
While historical sociology is conducive to examining the temporal dimensions of social life, critical archival methods are best suited to examining ideas, people, and neighborhoods that have been marginalized and, sometimes, completely erased from the historical record. My methodological intervention is to read the archive “against the grain” to examine how these emancipatory visions of the future are constructed and implemented throughout the lifecourse of a social movement (Hartman 1997). This method involves using any document produced by the state, legal entity, or organization and reading it for contrary purposes. This approach theorizes from the perspective of communities of color that have been displaced, whose knowledge has been misplaced within the archive, and whose collective action for self-determination has been buried under the historical record.