Christina Hughes

Christina Hughes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Macalester College, examining how racial and gendered labor and punishment are organized within global political economies across the Global North and South through diverse methodological approaches.

Her educational background includes:

• BA in Sociology and International Development Studies from UCLA (2011)
• MA in Sociology from the University of Washington (2014)
• PhD in Sociology from the University of Washington (2022)

Dr. Hughes' research critically analyzes the embeddedness of everyday social life within transnational power structures. Her current work interrogates refugee status as a political category through the lens of Vietnamese American experiences, revealing how states leverage moral authority to restrict borders while expanding carceral systems.

She is developing the book manuscript Bad Refugees based on two years of participant observation with Vietnamese American gang members, life history interviews, and archival research. Additionally, she collaborates with a transformative justice organization founded by formerly incarcerated individuals to study feminist prison programming as a pathway toward abolitionist futures.

Scientific Awards:

• No scientific awards were mentioned in the source material.

Dr. Hughes' research agenda demonstrates significant community-engaged scholarship through her prison collaboration project and book manuscript, though specific advising roles or grant funding details are not provided. Her work exemplifies sociology's applied potential in challenging punitive systems and reimagining justice.

She actively partners with a California-based transformative justice organization delivering feminist programming in state prisons, co-constructing knowledge with formerly incarcerated program alumni to develop non-punitive alternatives.