Glenn College Colloquium Series: Darwin Baluran

Dr. Darwin Baluran is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Glenn College of Public Affairs and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University. He earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from Vanderbilt University and a Bachelor of Science in Health Systems Management from Loyola University Chicago, where he was also a McNair scholar. He conducts research at the intersection of race, health, and criminology/criminal justice. He is particularly interested in examining how racialization processes differentially harm marginalized communities and addressing the disconnect between the conceptualization of race as a dynamic social construct and how it is often studied and interpreted as a static and de-contextualized variable.

Dr. Baluran’s research agenda currently focuses on four broad questions. First, how do individuals’ and groups’ understanding of racial/ethnic boundaries vary across spatial and temporal contexts? Second, how do the processes that shape our understanding of racial status reproduce inequality? Third, how do we address the hidden disparities in various outcomes (e.g., health, policing) that are often obscured by how we categorize people? Fourth, what do the lived experiences of people of Asian descent tell us about how race functions in U.S. society? He addresses these topics by engaging the literatures from the sociology of race, ethnicity, and migration; criminology, law, and society; policing and criminal justice; Asian American Studies; medical sociology; and demography. He also utilizes various methods including statistical analysis, qualitative interviews, and formal demographic techniques. Altogether, his interdisciplinary scholarship unpacks how racialization and racism are understood and experienced across place and over time, especially among overlooked groups such as people of Asian descent.