My research explores the political economies and ecologies generated through processes of legalization and criminalization. I am interested how order is cultivated and exceeded in agriculture, society, law, and policy. More practically, I explore the transition of cannabis from contraband to commodity. You can see some of my writing here. I am an anthropologist by degree (CUNY '16) and received training in political ecology while holding the Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Berkeley. Methodologically, I am an ethnographer but my work and collaborations are cross-disciplinary, as I address novel, urgent policy questions in the wake of the War on Drugs. My research lies at the intersection of political, legal, economic, and environmental anthropology and is in conversation with human geography, sociology and policy studies.
I have written on issues of legalization, compliance, banishment, land rent, commoning, police power, land use politics, agrarianism, environmental governance, and political economy. I have an advanced contract with University of Minnesota Press, tentatively entited Weed(s), on agrarian orders and their feral excesses. I am currently the director of UC Berkeley's Cannabis Research Center and serve on the State of California's Cannabis Advisory Committee. I also serve as Principal Investigator on two group projects: 1) "Cannabis in Consolidation?" on investment, operating pressures, social equity, and anti-competitive dynamics in California's cannabis industry, and 2) a mixed method the transformation of unlicensed cultivation and its policy determinants since legalization. I'm working on a third project on the role of cannabis cultivation in Hmong diasporas. My work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Wenner-Gren Foundation, Horowitz Fund, Resources Legacy Fund, and the State of California.
