Susan C. Pearce
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., New School for Social Research, 1997
Areas of Interest: Culture and Politics, Ethnicity, Immigration, Gender, Collective Memory, Democratic Transformations
Office: Brewster A-402
Tel: 252.328.2544
E-mail: pearces@ecu.edu
Cirriculum Vita
Research
Selected Publications
Books:
Pearce, Susan C., Elizabeth Clifford, and Reena Tandon. 2009. Immigrating Women. New York: New York University Press (forthcoming). Kapralski, Slawomir and Susan C. Pearce, ed. 2000. Reformulations: Markets, Policy, and Identities in Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Poland: IFIS Publishers.
Pearce, Susan C. and Eugenia Sojka, ed. 2000. Mosaics of Change: The First Decade of Life in the New Eastern Europe. Conference Proceedings from “Cultural Transformations and Civil Society: Reflecting on a Decade of Change.” Gdańsk, Poland: University of Gdańsk.
Published Articles and Book Chapters:
Sokoloff, Natalie J. and Susan C. Pearce. 2008. “Locking Up Hope: Immigration, Gender, and the Prison System.” S&F Online, peer-reviewed academic journal of the Barnard College Center for Research on Women.
http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/sfonline/immigration/sokoloff_pearce_01.htm
Pearce, Susan C. 2008. Seven entries for the Encyclopedia of the Culture Wars: George Soros, Maya Angelou, Jim Wallis, Alex Haley, Muslims in America, Race, and Jane Alexander. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. (forthcoming)
Pearce, Susan C. 2007. “Saxophones, Trumpets, and Hurricanes: The Cultural Restructuring of New Orleans” in Hillary Potter, ed., Racing the Storm: Racial Implications and Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Clifford, Elizabeth J., Susan C. Pearce, and Reena Tandon. 2006. “Two Steps Forward? Reinventing U.S. Immigration Policy for Women,” in Proceedings for the Annual Conference of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Washington, DC, June 19-21, 2005.
Pearce, Susan C. 2005. “Contesting “Nation” through the Local: The New York African Burial Ground in 2005.” General Anthropology 12:1.
Published Research Studies:
Pearce, Susan C. 2006. “Women and U.S. Immigration.” Immigration Policy In Focus.Washington, DC: Immigration Policy Center.
http://immigration.server263.com/images/File/specialreport/Immigrant%20Women%20(IPC%202006).pdf
Pearce, Susan C. 2005. “Today's Immigrant Woman Entrepreneur.” Immigration Policy In Focus 4:1. Washington, DC: Immigration Policy Center.
http://immigration.server263.com/images/File/infocus/Immigrant%20Women%20Entrepreneurs.pdf Journalism:
Sokoloff, Natalie J. and Susan C. Pearce. “Domestic Violence in Immigrant Communities.” Baltimore Independent Media Center, April 15, 2005.
Pearce, Susan C. Letters to the Editor: “The Proper Role of Sociology in the World at Large.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/1/2004, Vol. 51 Issue 6, pp. B17-B18. Pearce, Susan C. “Greening up Poland.” Transitions On Line June 2001.
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=31&NrSection=19&NrArticle=3285&search=search&SearchKeywords=Susan+Pearce&SearchMode=on&SearchLevel=0
Pearce, Susan C. “Conspiracy of Silence.” Transitions On Line February 15, 2001.
Pearce, Susan C. “When Home is Hell: Domestic Violence in the Pomorska Province” (translated into Polish) Gazeta Wyborcza July 26, 1999.
Other Publications:
Clifford, Elizabeth and Susan Pearce. 2004. “Women and Current U.S. Immigration Policies.” Social Activism Fact Sheet, published by Sociologists for Women in Society. (peer reviewed) http://www.socwomen.org/socactivism/womenimm.pdf
Current Projects:
Immigrating Women:
With Elizabeth J. Clifford and Reena Tandon, I am completing a book manuscript (monograph) that profiles immigrant women residing in the United States today, across nationalities. Through personal interviews and census data, the book argues for a gendered understanding of the immigration experience, portraying the multidimensionality of immigrant women in their lives as entrepreneurs, engineers, artists, activists, business leaders, and domestic workers.
Immigration and Domestic Violence:
Baltimore Research: with Natalie Sokoloff of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, I am analyzing survey and focus group data collected in Baltimore, Maryland on domestic violence among immigrant communities. We conducted exploratory surveys with women in five language groups: Spanish, Russian, French (African), Korean, and Chinese. Our focus group participants are professionals who work with immigrants and/or domestic violence survivors. Our research seeks to identify policy and service gaps, including interactions with the criminal justice system. Comparative Research: I am designing a comparative project to include similar data from other cities, and to analyze the work of immigrant activists in this arena.
Collective Memory and the Solidarity Movement in Poland:
With Homa Firouzbakhch
, recently of University of Gdańsk, Poland, I am analyzing interview and participant observation data on the present-day collective memory of the Solidarity Movement in Poland. Beginning with the 25th anniversary of the first strike, which was commemorated in 2005, we are assessing how Poles living in Poland formally and informally remember this movement, and how memory is related to present-day politics. Among the papers that I have written based on this research to date is
“The Polish Solidarity Movement in Retrospect: In Search of a Mnemonic Mirror,” which suggests that there is a widespread, though active, hesitation over the commemoration of this movement.
Open Societies and Transformations:
I have collected survey data from four classes of international graduate students who have received scholarships to study in the United States and the United Kingdom. I am in the process of administering a post-experience survey with those who have returned to their countries. I am supplementing the surveys with focus groups with the students. The goal is to understand normative understandings of democracy-building and culture in countries undergoing democratic transformations. I plan to add a new ethnographic component to the research, regarding ethnic cultures in such countries.
Immigration Rights Movement:
I have been involved in a participation of the immigration rights movement in the United States. I have written about the movement in Maryland and plan to expand this research in the state of North Carolina.
