Melissa Burch

My research and community work focus on the experiences of people with criminal records in the United States, with an emphasis on how social hierarchies and inequalities are maintained and reproduced through processes of criminalization and punishment. My upcoming book Afterlives of Conviction: Work, Race and the Criminal Records Complex explores the discriminatory use of criminal records in the sotuhern California job market.

Where possible, my scholarship seeks pivot points between academia and on-the-ground work and strives to make scholarly data and concepts available to organizers, educators, and policymakers in engaging and useful ways. Please visit: www.afterlivesofconviction.org

Research Areas of Interest:

Race and racism;  criminalization; social inequality; prisoner reentry; criminal records; labor markets; urban ethnography; activist scholarship

Awards:

• 2020 Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship
• 2017 Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Engaged Anthropology Grant.
• 2016  Ford Foundation. Honorable Mention Dissertation Writing Fellowship Competition.
• 2014 Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Dissertation Research Grant.
• 2013 University of Texas, Austin. Graduate Thematic Fellowship. 
• 2012 University of Texas, Austin Community Engagement Center. Social Justice Institute, Activist Research Grant Initiative 
• 2011 University of Texas, Austin. Graduate Diversity Fellowship.