Parthiban Muniandy

Cities are shaped not only by official policies and infrastructures but also by the informal and everyday interactions that blur boundaries between legality and illegality, local and global, self and other. This seminar will explore informality as a defining feature of urban life and globalization, examining how people navigate unregulated economies; build informal networks of care and survival; and redefine cosmopolitanism through daily acts of negotiation, adaptation, and contamination. Using a transnational and ethnographic lens, we will look at how informal economies—street vending, unregistered housing, underground labor networks—shape cities from the margins. We will also examine cultural and social “contaminations,” where urban residents of different class, racial, ethnic, and migratory backgrounds encounter and transform each other’s ways of life—sometimes in conflict, sometimes in collaboration. Rather than viewing informality as a “problem” to be solved, we will investigate how it can be a form of survival, resistance, and even innovation. Key themes include the role of informal housing and precarious urbanism, as seen in slums, refugee camps, and do-it-yourself architecture, as well as the dynamics of street economies and alternative labor structures. We will explore how migrant communities shape transnational place making; the politics of food, music, and everyday cultural hybridity; and how public space is governed, contested, and informally negotiated in cities. These intersecting themes highlight the ways in which urban life is constantly being reshaped through both structural constraints and human agency. Readings will include works by Teresa Caldeira, Asef Bayat, AbdouMaliq Simone, Ananya Roy, and Saskia Sassen, alongside ethnographic case studies of cities in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and North America. Students will conduct ethnographic fieldwork—exploring the informal landscapes of urban spaces, neighborhoods, and/or digital communities around them—as part of conference work. These projects can culminate in ethnographic essays, photo essays, digital maps, or multimedia storytelling. This course is designed for students interested in urban studies, migration, globalization, and the sociology of everyday life. No previous background in sociology is required, but students should be ready to engage in active field observation, lots of field note-writing, discussion, and critical and creative thinking.

In an era of unprecedented global connectivity, why do economic and social inequalities continue to deepen? This lecture will provide students with a critical introduction to the sociological study of global inequalities, moving beyond national boundaries to examine the transnational structures, institutions, and processes that produce and sustain disparities in wealth, power, and opportunity. We will explore key themes—such as human rights, migration, labor, health, climate justice, and development—analyzing how these intersect with racial, gendered, and class-based inequalities across different societies. Rather than treating nations as isolated “containers” of social issues, we will focus on the ways in which global forces—such as capitalism, colonial legacies, and international policy regimes—shape patterns of privilege and precarity. Students will engage with interdisciplinary sources, including sociological research, ethnographies, policy reports, and case studies from regions in the Global South and Global North. Topics will include the rise of transnational migration networks, the impact of neoliberal economic policies on developing economies, the persistence of racial hierarchies in global labor markets, and the consequences of climate change for displaced communities. As part of group conferences, students will identify a key global issue and develop a research portfolio using a variety of methods—statistical analysis, historical records, qualitative interviews, and ethnographic sources—to investigate how inequality is shaped and contested in different contexts. The course will encourage students to think critically about solutions, exploring social movements, policy interventions, and alternative models of economic and social justice. This course is open to all students interested in understanding the dynamics of inequality on a global scale. No prior course work in sociology is required, but students should be prepared for rigorous reading, discussion, and research.

The focus of the seminar will be on questions of diversity, difference, and cosmopolitanism as it pertains to urban life in a contemporary American city such as Yonkers or New York City, as well as in urban societies around the world. We will take a sociological look at how urban communities experience, navigate, and transform social structures, relationships, and institutions in their everyday lives, as they deal with problems such as inequality, hate, and exclusion while coexisting with different and diverse populations. We will read books and essays by Arlie Hochschild, Asef Bayat, Yuval Noah Harari, Dina Neyeri, Robert Putnam, and others, as we explore ways in which cities embody histories as central while marginalizing others—and how communities and people in their everyday lives resist, alter, and decenter those histories and hierarchies. Through engaged field research, we will try to learn and understand how diverse communities of people work and live together; build and provide for the wider community; and rely on informal and formal opportunities, resources, and networks to make life in the city possible. This course aims to train students on the basics of fieldwork research and ethnography in urban settings, using a wide variety of transnationally oriented theoretical and methodological approaches. Our key thematic questions will revolve around issues of difference, diversity, and cosmopolitanism as understood through sociological lenses. By using in-depth, grounded, and deeply engaged approaches to fieldwork in the city of Yonkers and other urban areas where students live, work, or visit, we will seek to understand how communities of hyperdiversity and intense differences manage to cohabit and live together in cities and how communities deal with hate, prejudice, and structural marginalization in their everyday lives. Through grounded fieldwork, we will be able to gain a better picture of how local communities improvise and use informal means to make their everyday lives work in these spaces.

The focus of the seminar will be on questions of diversity, difference, and cosmopolitanism as it pertains to urban life in a contemporary American city such as Yonkers or New York City, as well as in urban societies around the world. We will take a sociological look at how urban communities experience, navigate, and transform social structures, relationships, and institutions in their everyday lives, as they deal with problems such as inequality, hate, and exclusion while co-existing with different and diverse populations. We will read books and essays by Arlie Hochschild, Asef Bayat, Yuval Noah Harari, Dina Neyeri, Robert Putnam, and others, as we explore ways in which cities embody particular histories as central while marginalizing others—and how communities and people in their everyday lives resist, alter, and decenter those histories and hierarchies. Through engaged field research, we will try to learn and understand how diverse communities of people work and live together; build and provide for the wider community; and rely on informal and formal opportunities, resources, and networks to make life in the city possible.

Cities and urban spaces are important places in which the marginalized poor and other underprivileged communities seek refuge and shelter by engaging in forms of rebuilding and placemaking that tend to fall outside of the purview and control of the state and authorities. Here, we take a transnational perspective on how the precarious and vulnerable urban poor develop strategies and practices of living that are geared toward securing greater autonomy and dignity primarily through forms of peripheral development and informality. We will explore interconnected themes of family, kinship, work, gender, and social reproduction as they pertain to the urban poor. We will also pay attention to how diversity and difference are negotiated daily by communities of faith, creed, color, ethnicity, and gender that share the same urban work and communal spaces. Some of the theories and concepts that we will read include: Teresa Caldeira’s “autoconstruction,” Asef Bayat’s “quiet encroachment of the ordinary,” Henri Lefebvre’s “right to the city,” Ananya Roy’s “subaltern urbanism,” and Mignolo’s “border thinking.” The City of Yonkers will be a case study for many of those themes of difference, informality, everyday cosmopolitanism, and hyperdiversity. This course will take the City of Yonkers as an urban center for the ethnographic study of life in a cosmopolitan setting. Students will have the opportunity to work with organizations such as the Yonkers Public Library to explore some of the questions around difference, diversity, and everyday cosmopolitanism among the various communities in the city. The course will include a fieldwork component where, each week, students will couple ongoing participant observations with the writing of field notes.

This seminar offers a deep dive into the multifaceted world of social connections that span across national borders, challenging the traditional notions of space, identity, and community. The seminar’s core focus is on understanding how transnational networks operate within and influence various spheres of global society, including migration, economic practices, digital communication, and social movements. Through a critical examination of these networks, the course aims to shed light on the complexities of global interconnectedness, the role of technology in facilitating transnational ties, and the implications of these networks for social change and policy-making. In order to become equipped with a nuanced understanding of global social dynamics, students will engage with contemporary sociological theories and methodologies to analyze the formation, evolution, and impacts of transnational social networks in order. The seminar will incorporate a range of scholarly articles, book chapters, and case studies to explore topics such as the dynamics of diaspora communities and their influence on homeland politics; the economic ramifications of transnational remittances; the role of social media in fostering transnational activism and solidarity; and the impacts of transnational networks on cultural identity and integration processes. Readings include works by Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou on the concept of “social capital” within immigrant communities, Arjun Appadurai's theories on the cultural dimensions of globalization, Faranak Miraftab's notion of “transnational relationality,“ and Manuel Castells’ insights into the network society.

In this FYS seminar, students will be introduced to the field of borders and migration studies based in the social sciences. We will start by reading some key sociological theories that provide students with an overview of sociology as a discipline and its relevance both within a liberal-arts education and to a wider social and political context. We will then focus on readings that provide students with foundational knowledge in border studies, globalization, the role of nations, nation states and nationalism in society, and, last but not least, migration and displacement studies. Special focus will also be given to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on globalization, migration, and the rise of new nationalisms around the world. As part of the seminar’s “practicum” dimension, students will learn the basics of initiating, designing, and carrying out sociological research using various methods of data analysis, including surveys, statistics, interview, and field research. Throughout the year, students will have opportunities to engage in new and ongoing research projects related to the themes of nationalism, borders, and mobilities by engaging with cross-campus organizations, community partners, and broader initiatives such as the Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement, and Education. Starting in the fall, students will be introduced to some of the resources on campus that are essential for their learning and academic progress at Sarah Lawrence, such as the library and the writing center. Students will be expected to take advantage of these resources as they learn the ropes of conducting research in the social sciences and refining their academic writing skills. In addition to our regular class sessions, students will meet with the faculty instructor weekly during the fall semester for conference meetings. Conference meeting times will be used to discuss the student’s progress in the class and, more generally, during their first semester at Sarah Lawrence. In the subsequent spring semester, we will move to a biweekly conference-meeting schedule, depending on the student’s ongoing progress and needs.

In this FYS seminar, students will be introduced to the field of borders and migration studies based in the social sciences. We will start by reading some key sociological theories that provide students with an overview of sociology as a discipline and its relevance both within a liberal-arts education and to a wider social and political context. We will then focus on readings that provide students with foundational knowledge in border studies, globalization, the role of nations, nation-states, nationalism in society, and, finally, migration and displacement studies. The readings and discussions for the seminar adopt a “social problems” approach, looking at themes such as dimensions of inequality (race, class, and gender), labor, forced migration, and religious conflict through a transnational lens. As part of the seminar’s “practicum” dimension, students will learn the basics of initiating, designing, and carrying out sociological research using various methods of data analysis, including surveys, statistics, interviews, and field research. Throughout the year, students will have opportunities to engage in new and ongoing research projects related to the themes of nationalism, borders, and mobilities by engaging with cross-campus organizations and community partners in the City of Yonkers and wider Westchester County. During the second semester (spring 2025), students will be expected to engage in fieldwork, either independently or volunteering with community partners such as the Yonkers Public Library, Hudson River Museum, Wartburg, CURB, Center Lane, ArtsWestchester, or another organization. The fieldwork component will form the basis for the sociological research and writing that students produce for their conference work in the seminar. Starting in the fall, students will be introduced to some of the resources on campus that are essential for their learning and academic progress at Sarah Lawrence, such as the library and the writing center. Students will be expected to take advantage of these resources as they learn the ropes of conducting research in the social sciences and refining their academic writing skills. In addition to our regular class sessions, students will meet with the faculty instructor weekly during the fall semester for individual conferences. Conference meeting times will be used to discuss the students' progress in the class and, more generally, during their first semester at Sarah Lawrence. In the subsequent spring semester, we will move to a biweekly conference meeting schedule, depending on the student’s ongoing progress and needs.

What kinds of social worlds emerge when people are expected to live temporarily for years or decades? Across the contemporary world, refugees, undocumented migrants, and other displaced populations inhabit spaces organized around waiting, in camps, detention regimes, asylum systems, informal settlements, and humanitarian infrastructures. Yet these are not only sites of crisis. They are places where families form, schools struggle to operate, economies stabilize, and political movements grow, even in environments designed to prevent permanence. This seminar will examine displacement not simply as movement across borders but as a reorganization of time, legality, belonging, and everyday coexistence. We will explore how people become categorized as “temporary”—asylum seekers, guest workers, foreign laborers, seasonal migrants—and what this status does to their lives, rights, and futures. The course will situate migration within broader global realities: more than a billion people move internally or internationally, while climate change, conflict, and economic restructuring continue to produce new forms of displacement and precariousness. We will ask how states manage mobility, why certain populations become national “problems,” and how migrants craft livable worlds within administrative uncertainty. Readings will introduce key theoretical approaches to citizenship, governance, and mobility, including Hannah Arendt on statelessness and the “right to have rights,” Giorgio Agamben on exception and camp rule, Michel Foucault on discipline and regulation, and Aihwa Ong on flexible citizenship and graduated sovereignty. Ethnographic and urban scholarship from Liisa Malkki, Didier Fassin, Miriam Ticktin, Peter Nyers, Asef Bayat, and Ananya Roy anchor these ideas in everyday practice, while literary and climate perspectives—including Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement—push us to think beyond policy frameworks toward imagination, narrative, and planetary change. We will also examine how displacement is represented across media—photography, film, fiction, and interactive worlds—and how societies are responding to an era increasingly defined by hyper-diversity and permanent precarity. The seminar will be writing-intensive and research-oriented. Students will practice observation and analytic writing throughout the semester and develop a conference project based on an original research question related to migration, bordering practices, or urban coexistence. Students will be encouraged to experiment with unconventional forms of analysis and storytelling that grapple with vulnerability, temporariness, and being out-of-place in the contemporary world.

In this lecture, students will be introduced to key areas of study in the sociology of “deviance,” detention, and illegality. We will be taking a global and transnational perspective on examining the ways in which social groups define, categorize, and reinforce deviance and illegality, from the treatment of minority and persecuted groups to the detention and expulsion of populations such as undocumented migrants and refugees. Students will learn about foundational theories and concepts in the field, starting with a reading of Émile Durkheim’s classical study of suicide and the idea of anomie, followed by Robert Merton’s strain theory and then contemporary ones such as conflict theory, labeling theory, and the infamous “broken-windows” theory. The class will take a critical approach to reflecting and challenging ideas about deviance and illegality by examining global and transnational forms of population governance, such as ongoing mutations to human rights and the technocratic management of displaced populations through humanitarianism around the world. We will be reading about major sectors of transnational deviance and crime, including industrial fishing and trafficking on the high seas (Ian Urbina’s The Outlaw Ocean), exploitation and profiteering through international logistics (Carolyn Nordstrom’s Global Outlaws), and transnational sex work and trafficking (Christine Chin and Kimberly Hoang). This critical lens is intended to help us understand how different groups and populations are rendered “deviant” or “illegal” for the purposes of management and control (or political leverage) and to what extent groups themselves are able to resist or challenge those categorizations. Finally, we will be looking at how social movements and acts of resistance can produce widescale changes in societies toward the treatment and categorization of people seen as “deviants,” “criminals,” or “illegals”—including struggles against apartheid, hunger strikes in prisons, and protest movements for undocumented groups. Additionally, we will be discussing how social transformations wrought by three years of living under a global pandemic has led to the emergence of new forms of deviance related to biopolitical and biotechnological notions of population health and well-being. For conference work in this lecture, students will work in groups to produce portfolios of research on an area of study related to deviance, detention, and illegality. Each portfolio will include presentations and discussions of the chosen area of study, as well as critical essays written by each student that bring in conceptual and theoretical discussions drawn from the class.

In this lecture, students will be introduced to key areas of study in the sociology of “deviance,” detention, and illegality. We will be taking a global and transnational perspective on examining the ways in which social groups define, categorize, and reinforce deviance and illegality, from the treatment of minority and persecuted groups to the detention and expulsion of populations such as undocumented migrants and refugees. Students will learn about foundational theories and concepts in the field, starting with a reading of Émile Durkheim’s classical study of suicide and the idea of anomie, followed by Robert Merton’s strain theory, and then contemporary ones such as conflict theory, labeling theory, and the infamous “broken-windows” theory. The class will take a critical approach to reflecting and challenging ideas about deviance and illegality by examining global and transnational forms of population governance, such as ongoing mutations to human rights and the technocratic management of displaced populations through humanitarianism around the world. We will be reading about major sectors of transnational deviance and crime, including industrial fishing and trafficking on the high seas (Ian Urbina’s Outlaw Ocean), exploitation and profiteering through international logistics (Carolyn Nordstrom’s Global Outlaws), and transnational sex work and trafficking (Christine Chin and Kimberly Hoang). This critical lens is intended to help us understand how different groups and populations are rendered “deviant” or “illegal” for the purposes of management and control (or political leverage) and to what extent groups themselves are able to resist or challenge those categorizations. Finally, we will be looking at how social movements and acts of resistance can produce widescale changes in societies toward the treatment and categorization of people seen as “deviants,” “criminals,” or “illegals”—including struggles against apartheid, hunger strikes in prisons, and protest movements for undocumented groups. Additionally, we will be discussing how social transformations wrought by three years of living under a global pandemic has led to the emergence of new forms of deviance related to biopolitical and biotechnological notions of population health and well-being. For conference work in this lecture, students will work in groups to produce portfolios of research on an area of study related to deviance, detention, and illegality. Each portfolio will include presentations and discussions of the chosen area of study, as well as critical essays written by each student that bring in conceptual and theoretical discussions drawn from the class.

This lecture will introduce major areas of study in the sociology of deviance, detention, and illegality through a global and transnational lens. Rather than asking simply why individuals break rules, the course will examine how societies create rules, decide who counts as a problem, and build institutions to manage that decision, from everyday policing to migration control and humanitarian governance. We will begin by learning about foundational theories by Émile Durkheim on anomie and the social function of deviance, Robert Merton’s strain theory, and later developments including conflict theory, labeling theory, stigma, and the controversial “broken windows” model. These frameworks will provide tools for understanding how behaviors become categorized as criminal, pathological, risky, or merely tolerated—and why those distinctions rarely fall evenly across populations. From there the course will move outward to contemporary forms of regulation and global population management. Readings will examine detention regimes, border enforcement, and the administration of displaced populations, alongside transnational sectors where legality is negotiated rather than fixed, with case studies including industrial fishing and maritime labor exploitation (Ian Urbina’s The Outlaw Ocean), informal and illicit global trade (Carolyn Nordstrom’s Global Outlaws), and transnational sex work and trafficking (Christine Chin and Kimberly Hoang). Through these cases, students will consider how states, markets, and humanitarian institutions classify people as “deviant,” “criminal,” or “illegal,” and how those categories function as tools of governance and political leverage. The course will also explore resistance movements such as prison hunger strikes, struggles against apartheid, undocumented activism, and other social movements that challenge official classifications and reshape public discourse and morality. We will conclude by examining how the COVID-19 pandemic produced new forms of deviance tied to public health, surveillance, and biopolitical regulation, which reveal how quickly norms of acceptable behavior can shift under conditions of crisis. Conference work will be conducted in collaborative research groups. Each group will produce a portfolio on a chosen topic related to deviance, detention, or illegality, including presentations, guided discussions, and individual critical essays that integrate theoretical and empirical material from the course. By the end of the semester, students should be able to see deviance not as a property of particular people but as an ongoing social process—one through which societies define order, distribute punishment, and negotiate belonging.

How do relationships travel? What happens when family, friendship, politics, money, and belonging no longer fit inside one country? This seminar will explore the dense webs of connection that link people across borders and the ways these ties reorganize everyday life. Migration today rarely means a clean break between “here” and “there.” Instead, migrants, students, workers, and activists sustain ongoing social worlds spanning multiple places at once: households stretched across continents, businesses coordinated across time zones, political debates conducted through messaging apps, and identities negotiated between overlapping communities. The course will examine how these networks challenge conventional ideas of nation, integration, and community. We will engage major theoretical approaches to global interconnectedness, including Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou on social capital and immigrant networks, Arjun Appadurai on cultural globalization and imagination, Faranak Miraftab on transnational relationality and grassroots politics, and Manuel Castells on the network society and digital communication. These frameworks will help us understand how mobility reshapes not only movement but also obligation, care, authority, and opportunity. Empirical case studies will address diaspora politics and homeland influence, remittances and economic survival strategies, digital communication and long-distance intimacy, and transnational activism and solidarity movements. Particular attention will be paid to how technologies, from informal money transfer systems to social media platforms, enable new forms of belonging while also producing new inequalities and surveillance. The seminar will be discussion-centered and research-oriented. Students will conduct small observational or interview-based projects tracing a transnational network of their choosing and develop a conference paper analyzing how connections operate across space, institutions, and everyday practice. By the end of the semester, students should be able to see globalization not as an abstract force but as something lived, maintained through messages sent at odd hours, obligations negotiated across currencies, and communities built in more than one place at the same time.