Race & Ethnic Studies Institute

Nicola Beisel is Associate Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Northwestern University and author of Imperiled Innocents: Anthony Comstock and Family Reproduction in America. In 2003 she published "Abortion, Race and Gender in Nineteenth Century America," which was awarded Best Recent Article prizes by the American Sociological Association’s section on Race, Class, and Gender and by the Political Sociology section. This current project has been supported by fellowships from the National Humanities Institute and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation

My research has evolved in four realms which deal mostly with the attempt to develop further the concept of social capital in the area of international migration: (1) Exploring the structure of social capital among undocumented migrants from Mexico to the United States taking into account the size of their place of origin, urban or rural. (2) Comparing and contrasting the process of social capital exchange during and after migration among Mexican and Salvadorian immigrants to the U.S. (3) Exploring the differences or similarities that may exist with regards to social capital exchange among immigrant and non-immigrant communities in Houston and Los Angeles. (4) Examining the history of U.S. immigration policy and its relationship to human and labor rights violations during the 20th and 21st Centuries