DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

Area(s) of Interest

Racial formation, racial and ethnic relations, immigration, political sociology, Afro-Latinxs and Afro-Latin America, and qualitative methods

Biography

Jennifer Jones’ research lies at the intersection of the sociology of race, immigration, and politics. Throughout her scholarship, she examines how race “works”, exploring the relationship between categorical ascription (e.g., checking a box, or how one is perceived) and meaning-making (e.g., identity, or feeling a sense of group belonging). Throughout her work, Jones seeks to examine the social construction of race by exploring three distinct sources of change in the contemporary racial landscape -- immigration, the growing multiracial population, and shifting social relations between and within racial groups. By focusing on these three themes, she works to expand our understanding of how people become racialized and make sense of that racial identity, as well as how those identities impact social relations and politics. Connecting these interests is a particular curiosity about how positive social relations and solidarity emerge between ostensibly distinct ethnoracial groups.

Jones is the author of The Browning of the New South (University of Chicago Press in 2019), which examines a case study of shifting race relations and the experiences of Mexican immigrants who have settled in the Winston-Salem area of North Carolina to explore regional racial change. In the book, Jones argues that in many locations throughout the Southeast, Latinos are being situated alongside blacks as excluded minorities, who see African-Americans as allies rather than adversaries. Moreover, she posits that such changes have enormous implications for local, state, and national politics. In collaboration with Hana Brown, she is completing a new monograph on immigrant-serving institutions throughout the South, explaining how racial ideologies shape the work that they do, as well as the political and social landscapes they operate in. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. Jones’s work can be found in such journals as the American Journal of Sociology, American Behavioral Scientist, Ethnic and Racial Studies, International Migration Review, Mobilization, and Sociology of Race and Ethnicity.

Jones received her BA from Pomona College and her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining the faculty at Northwestern, she served as a postdoctoral fellow at The Ohio State University, and on the faculty at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Illinois Chicago.

Courses Taught

SOCIOL 322: Immigration and Society
SOCIOL 476: Sociology of Immigration

Publications

Books

Jones, Jennifer A. 2019. The Browning of the New South. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Edited Volumes

Petra Rivera-Rideau, Jennifer A. Jones and Tianna Paschel, eds. 2016. Afro-Latinos in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism in the Americas. New York: Palgrave MacMillan Press.

Latest Journal Articles

Jones, Jennifer A., and Reanne Frank. 2023. “Making Minorities or Honorary Whites? Examining Multiracial Self-Concept.” Social Psychology Quarterly. Vol. 86(3): 219-240.

Brown, Hana, Zhongze Wei, Michelle Lazaran, Christopher Cates, and Jennifer A. Jones. 2023. “Rebuilding without Papers: Disaster Migration and the Local Reception of Immigrants after Hurricane Katrina.” Social Currents. Vol 10(2): 121-141.

Brown, Hana E., and Jennifer A. Jones. 2022. “Cultural Effects Of Social Movements: Racial Formation And The Immigrant Rights Struggle In The Deep South.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly. 27(4): 409-428.

Jones, Jennifer A. 2022. “‘They are There With Us’: Theorizing Racial Status and Intergroup Relations.” American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 128(2): 411-461.

Brown, Hana, Jennifer A. Jones. 2022. “Chasing Respectability: Reactionary Mobilization and the Reinforcement of Immigrant Racialization.” American Behavioral Scientist. Vol. 66, Issue 13: (1737-1757).