I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at SUNY Stony Brook in New York.  As a cultural sociologist, my research is concerned with understanding how individuals interpret and respond to racism and discrimination. I teach undergraduate and graduate courses on contemporary and classical social theory, race and ethnicity and qualitative methods. At the heart of my work is an interest in reducing group boundaries and revealing the conditions and mechanisms that promote inter-ethnic solidarity, empathy and cooperation.  

Most of my projects focus on ethnoracial relations and inequality in France and the United States. In particular, I focus on the experiences of people of African descent in those two nations.  My work in France draws upon mixed methods at multiple levels of analysis (in-depth interviews, ethnographic observation and content analysis) to explore the cultural identities, antiracist strategies and activism of French Caribbeans (the Antillais).  My research in the U.S. primarily draws upon in-depth interviews with African Americans in Boston and the New York metropolitan area.

Related interests include ethnoracial identification, collective memories of ethnoracial conflict (including slavery and colonization) and variations in the cultural repertoires that shape individuals' expectations for inter-group relations and fairness across different national settings. In short, I investigate how ethnoracial identities and boundaries influence the ways individuals interpret their everyday experiences and the manner in which they define a "just" society.

CONTACT: Crystal.Fleming[at]stonybrook.edu