My work is an effort to understand the role of grassroots action in bringing about social, political, and cultural change in Brazil and Latin America. My empirical research focuses on liberationist Catholicism, Pentecostalism, African religious movements, the Workers' Party, black consciousness movement and the landless workers' movement. I am currently working on a project that charts the causes and effects of an entirely new religio-political movement in Brazil: an emerging, vibrant network among evangelical churches of leaders committed to uniting their faith to a black consciousness and anti-racist agenda. This movement has an important transnational dimension, as leaders cross borders to the United States to undertake pilgrimages to the sites of the freedom trail of the American Civil Rights Movement. The project thus examines both the cultural effects of this movement for Brazil, and its embeddedness in processes of ideological transnationalism. I have a special commitment to building ties between academic research and social movement practice, through creating collaborative research teams and introducing research findings into social movements' ongoing self-assessments. I am founder and director of the Syracuse Social Movement Initiative, a clinic for Syracuse students who desire to bridge the gap between academic scholarship and social activism.

I am the Director of the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts (PARC) Project Advocacy and Activism Committee, on the steering committee for the Program on Latin America and Director of the Syracuse Social Movements Initiative (SSMI). Information on my courses may be found on my website.