Race, Technology, and Labor
Race, Technology, and Labor
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Active Collaborations
Active Collaborations
[A statistical chart of "Negro Business Men in the United States" from W.E.B DuBois' Paris Exposition Presentation in 1900, Sourced from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division in Washington D.C. ]
Skills: Project Management • Interview Methods • Qualitative Data Analysis • Grant Writing
Between Productivity and Imagination: Black Solopreneurs’ Sensemaking of Digital Technologies for Work, Dissertation Work
Previous scholars have attended to how entrepreneurial activity among Black Americans can be conceptualized as both an individual solution to employment discrimination, an alternative to employment, and a collective solution to racial economic self-determination (Wingfield 2008; Bento & Brown 2021). My research project uncovers how Black entrepreneurs think of their own labor, how they think of their relationships to others in their community, and how they view entrepreneurship as a path toward resistance.
Secondarily, I hope to the role that digital technologies play in shaping these ideas for Black entrepreneurs. These technologies include online platforms that serve as virtual shops, customer tracking databases, alternative lending platforms, and, of course, language learning models/artificial intelligence. Although marketing for these technologies depicts them as supercharged tools to assist the lone entrepreneur, scholars argue that the platforms that own these technologies offer them on expensive, precarious, and therefore, predatory terms (McMillan Cottom 2020). The precarity of these digital tools, despite the marketed symbology around them as modern, accessible products, has important implications for understanding the persistence of racial inequality.
I interview Black entrepreneurs and analyze transcript interview data using MAXQDA, a secure cloud-based qualitative computing software.
My dissertation committee supporting this work:
Erin Cech (Chair), Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan
Paige Sweet, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan
Apryl Williams, Associate Professor of Media & Communications, University of Michigan
Karyn Lacy, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan
Corey Fields, Associate Professor of Sociology, Georgetown University
[Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash ]
Skills: Project Management • Expert Witness Interviewing • Trend Analysis
Reparative AI, Digital Humanities Collaboratory
This is an interdisciplinary collaboration with faculty and graduate students from the University of Michigan Department of Media and Communications, Architecture, Psychology, English Language & Literature, and Sociology. We consider how artificial intelligence can be designed and implemented with a framework of repair in mind. Meaning, how can we both prevent and address situations when intelligence technologies negatively impact communities and populations?
I presented on this research as part of a 'fireside chat' panel at the 2025 Digital Studies Institute IDEAS Summer Institute.
Collaborators: Germaine Halegoua (Principal Investigator), Apryl Williams, Jasmine Banks, Matthew Bui, Tung Hui-Hui.
The Bodies, Identities, Intimacies, and Technologies Lab
The Bodies, Identities, Intimacies, and Technologies (BIIT) Lab critically explores identities such as race, gender, and sexuality; intimacies with others and our devices; technologies including wearable devices, social media, AI, and dating apps; bodies and embodiment; and intersections therein.
Through this lab, I have collaborated on several research projects with Psychology and Media & Communications scholars to conduct social experiment studies, consult on user experience research for tech companies, and analyze interview data collected on dating app users.
We are currently working on the study Love Unseen: Measuring Young Adults' Self-Perceptions and Attitudes Regarding Desirability in Dating Contexts, a project led by Media & Communications doctoral student Mel Monier, and funded by the 2025 NCID Anti-Racism Grant.
We are set to present our research on dating app design for marginalized communities at the 59th Hawaii International Conference of System Sciences.
Collaborators: Apryl Williams (Principal Investigator), Kyla Brathwaite, Mel Monier, Jasmine Banks, Janae Sayler, Gabe Paredes
[At the Time of the Louisville Flood by Margaret Bourke-White, Art Forum]
Skills: Literature Synthesis
Gaps and Opportunities in the New Technologies of Work
We aim to consider how might new technologies of work (platform technologies, video communications, artificial intelligence, etc.) displace people at work, destabilize educational opportunities, and potentially harm historically disenfranchised communities in the United States.
As workplaces continue to prioritize the implementation of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, we will focus on how the implementation of digital technologies shape how people age, seek retirement, and navigate today's employment uncertainties.
Collaborators: Gail Wallace (Principal Investigator), Rodney Coates, Christy Erving
Past Projects
Past Projects
Black Creatives in the Platform Economy (2023 - 2025)
As digital technologies increasingly become an important tool for entrepreneurs to access a customer base and gain capital, I am interested in the way that the demands of maintaining an online presence shape the performance of labor amongst Black crafters. Inspired by bell hooks' perspective of Visual Politics, which explains how race, class, and gender shape one's consumption and production of art, I designed a study between 2023 - 2025 that focused on the individual perspectives of Black creatives who sell art on platforms like Shopify, Etsy, and Instagram.
My research uncovers how the pressure to maintain visibility and profitability requires a performance that often goes underrecognized and unpaid. Still, Black creatives find joy and community in their work as they share their art with the world. See project overview here.
I presented results at the NCID Anti-Racism Grant Graduate Research Showcase and the Black Graduate Student Research Symposium in 2024.
My paper based on this work, Crafting Our Own Narratives is under review at a peer-reviewed journal.
Skills: Stata Statistical Computing • Population Survey Design • Open-Ended Text Analysis • Geographic Information System
More than an Appetite for Convenience?: The use of grocery delivery services in Detroit
(2021 - 2024)
Amidst the "new normal" of the pandemic, no-contact grocery services such as grocery delivery became more popular in the United States. Moreover, federal and state resources were set aside to accelerate the use of grocery delivery among low-income families, primarily those who access SNAP-EBT. To study the relationship between grocery delivery use and difficulties getting to the store or affording groceries, I designed and fielded a survey through the Detroit Metro Area Communities Study, a representative sample of the City of Detroit. Results of the study suggest that those who have higher transportation insecurity were more likely to use grocery delivery services, while many residents with disabilities or in post-medical operation recovery benefited greatly from the services. See full results here.
I presented results from this study at the 2023 Food Policy Summit at Marygrove College in Detroit, Michigan.
I co-published a policy report on study findings at the Ford School Center for Racial Justice.
Collaborators: Love Lundy
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