Dr. DaShanne Stokes' Research
Dr. DaShanne Stokes’ research examines power, politics, inequality, and institutional life. His scholarship explores how institutions shape legitimacy, recognition, exclusion, and social belonging, and how systems of authority regulate identities, structure inequalities, and organize democratic and social life across local, national, and global contexts.
Drawing from political sociology, criminology, sociology of law, postcolonial and decolonial approaches, and critical theory, his work investigates the institutional and cultural processes through which power becomes socially organized, normalized, contested, and reproduced. Across these areas, his research is united by a sustained interest in the social construction of legitimacy and the ways institutions shape the boundaries of recognition, visibility, criminalization, and political inclusion.
His scholarship also informs his teaching and mentoring, enabling students to engage contemporary sociological debates, research methods, and applied inquiry both inside and outside the classroom.
Research Areas
Recognition, Crime, and Political Belonging
A major project in Dr. Stokes' research is the analysis of political recognition, legitimacy, and the social organization of inclusion and exclusion. His work investigates how institutions and political actors define the boundaries of statehood, citizenship, sovereignty, and collective belonging, and how these processes shape inequality across the global arena.
His research has explored questions surrounding Indigenous political recognition, contested statehood, symbolic boundaries, and the colonial and postcolonial foundations of political legitimacy. This work examines how systems of recognition shape relations among states, nations, and marginalized communities while structuring access to political visibility, rights, and institutional inclusion. Dr. Stokes more recent work in this area examines the roles of crime in shaping state political recognition.
Selected publications in this area include work published in the International Review of Sociology and the American Indian Culture and Research Journal.
Crime and Inequality
Dr. Stokes' research in this area increasingly examines the intersections of crime, inequality, institutional power, and social control. His work explores how criminalization operates across systems of race, gender, sexuality, and political power, and how institutions construct and reproduce inequalities through legal, political, and cultural processes.
Current and developing projects examine biopower, state complicity, state crime, violence, social exclusion, and the criminalization of marginalized communities. This work includes research related to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), political crime, political discourse, and the historical evolution of discriminatory claims and rights-based rhetoric.
His work in these areas contributes to broader sociological conversations surrounding power, inequality, governance, criminalization, and institutional accountability.
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
Dr. Stokes’ research and teaching are closely connected and mutually informing. His scholarship on teaching and learning examines sociological empowerment, critical inquiry, and evidence-based pedagogical practices that help students connect personal experience with broader institutional and historical forces.
His pedagogical work includes peer-reviewed teaching publications through the American Sociological Association’s TRAILS resource library as well as ongoing work on an "Empowerment Approach" to teaching and learning. Related work is currently under review at Teaching Sociology.
Current Projects
Dr. Stokes' current and ongoing research projects include:
- Political recognition, domination, and resistance in the evolution of state legitimacy
- Biopower, institutional misrecognition, and the social production of inequality
- Criminalization and the historical evolution of marginalized social identities
- Violence, inequality, and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in comparative perspective
- Sociological empowerment and teaching practices in higher education
Dr. Stokes regularly presents research at professional conferences and integrates student mentorship into his research agenda through collaborative research activities, such as literature review, coding, data collection, data analysis, and conference-related scholarship.
Selected Publications
- Stokes, DaShanne. 2026 (forthcoming fall 2026). “Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, United States and Canada.” The Sage Encyclopedia of Crime and Gender. Janet Stamatel, ed. Sage.
- Stokes, DaShanne. 2026 (forthcoming fall 2026). “Biopower.” The Sage Encyclopedia of Crime and Gender. Janet Stamatel, ed. Sage.
- Stokes, DaShanne. 2020. "The Contraction of LGBT Rights in the Face of COVID-19."Social Problems in the Age of COVID-19: Volume 1 – U.S. Perspectives. Edited by G. Muschert, K. Budd, M. Christian, D. Lane, and J. Smith. Policy Press.
- Stokes, DaShanne. 2019. Political Opportunities and the Quest for Political Recognition." Mem>International Review of Sociology 29(1): 1–23.
- Stokes, DaShanne. 2012. "Native American Mobilization and the Power of Recognition: Theorizing the Effects of Political Acknowledgement." American Indian Culture and Research Journal 36(4): 57–76.
Collaboration and Student Research
Dr. Stokes welcomes opportunities for peer collaboration, student collaboration, and student advising and research mentorship. Students working with him have gained hands-on experience in an array of research activities--including data collection, data coding, literature reviews, and more--as well as collaborations leading to students gaining professional citations to strengthen their resumes and curriculum vitaes for the job market, graduate studies, and beyond.