Amaka Okechukwu

Amaka Okechukwu

Amaka Okechukwu

Assistant Professor

Sociology: Social Movements, Race and Ethnicity, Political Sociology, Urban Sociology, Qualitative Methods, Black Politics, Ethnography, Oral History

Amaka Okechukwu is an interdisciplinary scholar engaged in research on social movements, race, urban studies, and Black archives. She joined George Mason University's Department of Sociology and Anthropology in Fall 2017.  

Dr. Okechukwu’s research agenda concerns the intersection of collective action and racial justice, as well as urban spatial politics.

Selected Publications

For the latest updates on my work, please visit my website AmakaOkechukwu.com 

Okechukwu, Amaka (2021) “Watching and Seeing: Recovering Abolitionist Possibilities in Black   Community Practices of Safety and Security” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research  on Race

Okechukwu, Amaka (2020). “Confronting Scale: A Strategy of Solidarity in Urban Social Movements, New York City and Beyond” City & Community. 19:1060-1083  

Okechukwu, Amaka (2019). To Fulfill These Rights: Political Struggle Over Affirmative Action and Open Admissions (Columbia University Press). 

Winner of the Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award, Division of Racial and Ethnic Minorities, Society for the Study of Social Problems 2020; Ida B. Wells-Barnett Book Award, Association of Black Sociologists 2020

Okechukwu, Amaka (2014). “Shadows of Solidarity: Identity, Intersectionality, and Frame Resonance” Research in Social Movements, Conflicts, and Change, 37:153-180

Okechukwu, Amaka “Urban Social Hauntings: Disappearing Gravestone Murals in Gentrifying Brooklyn” (Conditional Accept at Environment and Planning D: Society and Space)

Okechukwu, Amaka. Saving Our City: Grassroots Resistance to the Urban Crisis in Brooklyn (In Progress Book Manuscript)

Digital Humanities Projects

Black Belt Brooklyn: Mapping Community Building and Social Life during the Urban Crisis

 

 

Grants and Fellowships

Dr. Okechukwu is a 2020 recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship. She was also a 2020 African American Digital Humanities (AADHUM) Scholar at the University of Maryland-College Park. Her work has been supported by grants from the Social Science Research Council, Andrew Mellon Foundation, Oral History Association, Imagining America, and the American Association of University Women.

Education

PhD, Sociology, New York University 

MA, Sociology, New York University 

BA, Sociology and English (Creative Writing Concentration), University of Southern California 

In the Media