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Celeste Michele Watkins-Hayes

Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, University of Michigan
Chapter Member: Michigan SSN
Areas of Expertise:

Connect with Celeste

About Celeste

Watkins-Hayes's research lies at the intersection of inequality, public policy, and institutions, with a special focus on urban poverty and race, class, and gender studies.

Contributions

No Jargon Podcast

In the News

"What Jonathan Van Ness’s Story Teaches Us About the H.I.V. Epidemic," Celeste Michele Watkins-Hayes, The New York Times, September 24, 2019.
"What Jonathan Van Ness's Story Teaches Us About the H.I.V. Epidemic," Celeste Michele Watkins-Hayes, The New York Times, September 24, 2019.
"Betwixt and Between: Middle Class Women Living with HIV/AIDS," Celeste Michele Watkins-Hayes, Chicago Magazine, January 24, 2012.
Celeste Michele Watkins-Hayes quoted on U.S. poverty policies, "Welfare Issue Makes a Political Comeback" The Chicago Tribune, January 22, 2012.
"Brian Babylon and Comedy as a Social Science," Celeste Michele Watkins-Hayes, Chicago Magazine, December 21, 2011.
"Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Post-Racial America," Celeste Michele Watkins-Hayes, Chicago Magazine, December 14, 2011.
"HIV/AIDS and the 99 Percent," Celeste Michele Watkins-Hayes, Chicago Magazine, December 2, 2011.
Guest to discuss HIV among Women in Chicago on WGN Chicago Morning News, Celeste Michele Watkins-Hayes, March 9, 2010.
Guest to discuss black women improving lives after AIDS on CBS Channel 2 News – Chicago, Celeste Michele Watkins-Hayes, February 19, 2010.

Publications

"'Dying from' to 'living with': Framing Institutions and the Coping Processes of African American Women Living with HIV/AIDS" (with LaShawnDa Pittman-Gay and Jean Beaman). Social Science & Medicine 74 (2012): 2028-2036.
Examines how and why interactions with non-profit and government institutions help to explain variation between those who thrive and those who do not following an HIV diagnosis.
"Race, Respect, and Red Tape: Inside the Black Box of Racially Representative Bureaucracies" Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 21, no. 2 (2011): i233-i251.
Examines racial diversity among the workforces of street-level bureaucracies such as welfare and unemployment offices and its implications for staff-client relations.
"Precious: Black Women, Neighborhood HIV/AIDS Risk, and Institutional Buffers" (with Courtney Patterson and Amanda Armour). The DuBois Review 8, no. 1 (2011): 229-240.
Explains the structural and institutional realities that render poor black urban neighborhoods particularly vulnerable to high HIV infection rates. Points to institutions as intermediaries to reduce the transmission of HIV, but also to improved health management for HIV-positive inner-city residents.
"The New Welfare Bureaucrats: Entanglements of Race, Class, and Policy Reform" (The University of Chicago Press, 2009).
Examines the implementation of welfare reform on the front lines of service delivery and how the professional, racial, class, and community identities of welfare caseworkers and supervisors shape the implementation of policy and other organizational dynamics.
"Race-ing the Bootstrap Climb: Black and Latino Bureaucrats in Post-Reform Welfare Offices" Social Problems 56, no. 2 (2009): 285–310.
Looks at whether and how race and socioeconomic class are used as tools in the delivery of casework services and finds that not only inter-racial but also intra-racial politics inform institutional processes within street-level bureaucracies.
"The Social and Economic Context of Black Women Living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S.: Implications for Research" in Sex, Power and Taboo: Gender and HIV in the Caribbean and Beyond, edited by Dorothy Roberts, Rhoda Reddock, Dianne Douglas, and Sandra Reid (Ian Randle Publishers, 2008).
Looks at the social consequences of HIV/AIDS for black women in the United States, including examinations of the various ways in which their social and economic experiences are impacted by the interplay between their health statuses and racial, gender, and class locations.
"Creating Networks for Survival and Mobility: Social Capital among African-American and Latin-American Low-Income Mothers" Social Problems 50, no. 1 (2003): 111-135.
Examines the social networks of low-income mothers to see how they generate social capital to obtain resources for survival and social mobility.