Temi AlaoGraduate Student

• B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Sociology, Rice University, 2020
• M.A. in Sociology, University of Florida, 2022

• Ethnoracial stratification
• Immigration
• Diaspora
• Du Boisian sociology
• Social psychology
• French studies
• Network analysis

My research is driven by questions that evaluate how macro-level structures (e.g., racial capitalism, Western modernity, status) are reified in the lives of individuals across the globe—namely, among ethnoracial minorities and immigrants. I am specifically interested in how these structures generate hierarchies that (I) influence the subjectivities and cultural beliefs of social actors, and (II) foster different forms of difference and inequality.

My dissertation, "Status Hierarchies of Black France, " uses interview and network analysis methods to examine how disparate status beliefs about Black immigrants from the United States and francophone African and Caribbean countries living in Paris and Montpellier, France produce inequalities in these groups’ economic incorporation, vis-a-via their social influence in the workplace and status attainment (mobilization of one's social networks to achieve upward mobility). This project synthesizes sociological approaches to race with social psychological theories of status to illustrate how intra-racial inequalities persist in a supposedly “race-less” context.

Alao, T. (Under Review). National Identity in the Trumpism Era: A Du Boisian Examination of Identity Change.

Alao, T. (2023). Diasporic Consciousness in African Immigrants’ Support for #BlackLivesMatter. Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2023.10