Critical race and racism; Global political economy; Labor

My research focuses on connecting race and racism concepts to understand how racial inequality occurs and racialization is produced. I developed the Global Critical Race and Racism Framework to outline how global white supremacy reproduces in the 21st century and in a series of articles and book chapters I elaborated on the theoretical constructions of “transnational racialization,” “transnational intersectionality,” “deep and malleable whiteness,” “embodied and disembodied whiteness,” “global colorblindness,” and how “critical race theory and sociology” intersect.

In 2025 I published The Global Journey of Racism with Stanford University Press. In the book I put forward a novel analysis of the global racial system to document how racism travels and race transforms across geographies, spaces, and times. One highly regarded scholar described the text as “destined to be an impactful and well-cited book.”

In addition to my conceptual work on race, I have conducted a series of field studies on labor, political economy and development in Kenya, Uganda, Costa Rica, and the US, and oversaw research in South Africa, Indonesia, China, and India. A portion of these studies were part of a collaborative international and interdisciplinary research project supported by UK DFID called, Capturing the Gains.

Since 2014 I have also collaborated with Ugandan partners in a series of articles that address the working conditions of domestic workers. Broadly, for most of my empirical field projects, I sought to understand how racialized and gendered components to precarious work forms and how they are shaped by global, national, and local forces.

Other research includes a recently published co-written article on the experiences of transgender works in the U.S. labor market and an ongoing longitudinal project on racism on college campuses in partnership with a counseling psychologist.

• Christian, Michelle. 2025. The Global Journey of Racism. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Christian, Michelle. 2025. “A Critical Race Theory of Global Colorblindness: Racial Ideology and White Supremacy.” Pp. 452-477 in Race, Racism, and International Law, edited by D. Carbado, K. Crenshaw, J. Desautels-Stein, and C. Thomas. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Rogers, Christopher and Michelle Christian. 2025. “My Gender Can Get Me Paid If I So Choose: The Processes of Transgender and Non-binary Labor Commodification and Embodied Work.” Critical Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205251349837.
• Christian, Michelle and Assumpta Namaganda. 2022. “Good Mzungu? Whiteness and White Supremacy in Postcolonial Uganda.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 30(2): 217-236.
• Karaman, Nuray and Michelle Christian. 2021. “‘Should I Wear a Headscarf to Be a Good Muslim Woman?’: Situated Meanings of the Hijab Amongst Muslim Women in America.” Sociological Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12454
• Karaman, Nuray and Michelle Christian. 2020. “‘My Hijab is Like My Skin Color’: Muslim Women Students, Racialization, and Intersectionality.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 6(4): 517-532.
• Christian, Michelle, Louise Seamster and Victor Ray. 2019. “Critical Race Theory and Empirical Sociology.” American Behavioral Scientist. 10.1177/0002764219859646.
• Christian, Michelle, Louise Seamster and Victor Ray. 2019. “New Directions in Critical RaceTheory and Sociology: Racism, White Supremacy, and Resistance.” American Behavioral Scientist. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219842623
• Christian, Michelle. 2019. “A Global Critical Race and Racism Framework: Racial Entanglements and Deep and Malleable Whiteness.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity5(2): 169-185.
• Christian, Michelle and Assumpta Namaganda. 2018. “Transnational Intersectionality and Domestic Work: The Production of Ugandan Intersectional Racialized and Gendered Domestic Worker Regimes.” International Sociology 33(3): 315-336
• Christian, Michelle. 2015. “Tourism Global Production Networks and Uneven Social Upgrading”. Tourism Geographies. DOI: 10.1080/14616688.2015.1116596
• Christian, Michelle. 2015. “Racial Neoliberalism in Costa Rican Tourism: Blanqueamiento in the Twenty-First Century.” Current Perspectives in Social Theory. 34: 157-189.
• Christian, Michelle. 2015. “Kenya’s Tourist Industry and Global Production Networks: Gender, Race, and Inequality.” Global Networks. 16(1): 25-44.
• Christian, Michelle. 2013. “‘(. . .) Latin America without the Downside’: Racial Exceptionalism and Global Tourism in Costa Rica.” Ethnic and Racial Studies. 36(10):1599-1618.