People
Alexandra Murphy

Faculty Associate; Training Faculty
Assistant Professor of Sociology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy and Faculty Associate, Population Studies Center, Institute for Social Research
Assistant Professor of Sociology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy and Faculty Associate, Population Studies Center, Institute for Social Research
Research Interests:
Dr. Murphy’s research uses ethnographic methods to examine how poverty and inequality are experienced, structured, and reproduced across and within multiple domains of social life including neighborhoods, social networks, organizations, and the state. Current research projects examine the new suburban poverty as well as the causes and consequences of transportation insecurity.
Select Publications
- Alexandra Murphy, Jerolmack, Colin . 2019. The Ethical Dilemmas and Social Scientific Trade-offs of Masking in Ethnography. Sociological Methods & Research :0049124117701483.
- Alexandra Murphy, Gould-Werth, Alix M., Griffin, Jamie. 2018. Developing a New Measure of Transportation Insecurity: An Exploratory Factor Analysis. Survey Practice 11(2)
- Alexandra Murphy, Duneier, Mitchell , Kasinitz, Philip . 2014. The Urban Ethnography Reader.
- Alexandra Murphy. 2012. “Litterers”: How Objects of Physical Disorder Are Used to Construct Subjects of Social Disorder in a Suburb. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 642(1):210-227.
- Alexandra Murphy. 2010. The Symbolic Dilemmas of Suburban Poverty: Challenges and Opportunities Posed by Variations in the Contours of Suburban Poverty. Sociological Forum 25(3):541-569.
- Alexandra Murphy, Wallace, Danielle . 2010. Opportunities for Making Ends Meet and Upward Mobility: Differences in Organizational Deprivation Across Urban and Suburban Poor Neighborhoods. Social Science Quarterly 91(5):1164-1186.
- Alexandra Murphy, Newman, Katherine . 2009. Children and Work. The Child: An Encyclopedic Companion
- Alexandra Murphy. 2007. The Suburban Ghetto: The Legacy of Herbert Gans on our Understanding of the Transformation of Urban Poverty. City and Community 6(1):21-37.
- Alexandra Murphy, Venkatesh, Sudhir . 2006. Policing Ourselves: Law and Order in the American Ghetto. Youth, Globalization, and the Law :124-157.
- Alexandra Murphy, Venkatesh, Sudir . 2006. Vice Careers: The Changing Contours of Sex Work in New York City. Qualitative Sociology 29(2):129-154.