About me

Welcome! I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. I am an ethnographer who studies political processes and effects in everyday life. My current work examines seniors’ ethnonational identities, worldviews, and everyday political behaviour in retirement homes. My earlier work studied the effects of secular politics on national belonging. I have expertise and publications in the areas of aging, politics & identity, and immigration, race, ethnicity, & gender.

My dissertation is an ethnographic study of nationalism in old-age homes in Québec. Nationalism in Québec cannot be understood without the perspective of seniors who lived through different moments of nationalist politics over the life course and show strong support for nationalist leaders. In Québec, seniors are most demographically represented among voters and show strong support for laicité, a state-endorsed nationalist policy. Drawing on 12-months of fieldwork, I examine how ethnonationalism manifests among seniors that live in private residences (RPAs), why it is important for community-building among seniors, and its effects on everyday political behaviour and voting. This research offers a new framework for understanding nationalism as an emotional tether to community when social networks dwindle, seniors are isolated from their families and live amongst strangers.

My peer-reviewed work is published in Gender & Society and Ethnic and Racial Studies. I also published book reviews in the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity and International Migration Review—all leading journals in their respective subfields.

I am a recipient of a prestigious doctoral fellowship from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et Culture and a former Harney Graduate Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.