Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz was born and raised on the Northwest Side of Chicago. Prior to graduate school, he spent several years working as a community organizer in the Humboldt Park area. He received a PhD from Brown University, MA from the University of Illinois-Chicago, and a BA from Northeastern Illinois University. Michael joined Northwestern’s Department of Sociology and Latina/o Studies Program in 2016.
Michael has published on poverty knowledge, Latino identity formation, and the relationship between critical sociologies of race and science and technology studies. His dissertation received the 2016 American Sociological Association Dissertation Award. He is currently working on a book manuscript, based on his dissertation research, that investigates the production and use of imagined demographic futures to advance contemporary Latino civil rights agendas. This research provides a productive entry point into emergent political struggles over the so-called “Browning of America.” His next major research project will explore the history of Puerto Rican radicalism, memory, and state repression in Chicago.
He teaches courses on race and racial knowledge, qualitative/ethnographic methods, and Latino identity and politics, among others.