The Department of Sociology is excited to welcome new assistant professor, Jon Gordon, this fall! Jon's research focuses on the interconnections between patterns in violence, policing, and security in marginalized communities. He will receive his PhD in Sociology from New York University this year. Jon is currently working on a book that examines how a criminalized group of men engaged in extrajudicial violence and drug dealing as a part of a broader project of building a safer community with residents in a zone of Medellín, Colombia. Based on seven years of ethnographic fieldwork, the book illustrates how the men's violent and criminal activities created pathways for them to co-construct non-criminal, masculine identities and establish a nonprofit organization that carried our community service projects on behalf of residents of the zone.
Jon will teach Criminology and Constructions of Gender for the Fall 2021 semester. In both courses, special attention is given to is given intersections of gender, sexual, race, and class inequalities in a wide range of spheres, from education, the workplace, and popular culture, to crime, violence, and punishment.
Jon loves the outdoors, hiking, and exercising. Prior to his immersion in sociology, Jon was the lead vocalist for a reggae band, which started in Medellín, Colombia and ultimately spent a year playing music on the beaches of Brazil.
Jon Gordon
