Assistant Professor at Arizona State University
About
David Forrest teaches in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University. His research addresses the interplay of political organization and social marginalization. He takes a particular interest in how organized efforts to produce social change reinforce and/or challenge patterns of inequality that affect marginalized groups; he follows this interest across a range of topics, including democratic theory, urban politics, and the politics of public affairs. His work has appeared in multiple venues and received several grants and awards, including the 2012 Christian Bay Award from the New Political Science section of the American Political Science Association.
Current Work:
David Forrest's current book project examines the dynamics and difficulties of representing the poor and other marginalized groups in the post-civil rights era of American democracy. To unpack these dynamics and difficulties, he draws on an ethnographic study of antipoverty advocates, an organized group that grapples with the representation of the poor in especially outspoken and revealing ways. This study compares, in particular, the efforts of three different antipoverty advocacy organizations in the wake of the Great Recession--an anti-foreclosure coalition, a welfare rights organization, and a public education coalition. Using both observational and archival evidence, Forrest specifies and unpacks the constructions of poor peoples' interests underlying each organization's representative efforts. He then analyzes how, in deploying these constructions, they evoke and face several broadly relevant political dilemmas--including dilemmas of respectability, otherness, radicalism, and moderation. Ultimately, Forrest demonstrates, the ability of advocates and other political actors to effectively represent marginalized groups in the post-civil rights era hinges largely on whether and how they resolve these dilemmas.
Research Area(s):
- Political Science
- Sociology
