FORA.tv Speaker - Sudhir Venkatesh

Sudhir Venkatesh's research is rooted in ethnographic investigation of urban neighborhoods in the United States (New York, Chicago) and Paris, France. His most recent book, Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor (Harvard University Press, 2006), an ethnographic study of illegal economies in Chicago, received the C. Wright Mills Award (2007) and a Best Book Award from Slate.com (2006). His first book, American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto (2000), explored the social organization, moral universe, and history of a Chicago housing development, The Robert Taylor Homes. His forthcoming book, Gang Leader for a Day, is a reported memoir (Penguin Press, 2008). He is also the co-editor of Youth, Globalization and the Law (Stanford University Press 2006) and Director of the Youth and Globalization Collaborative Research Network at the Social Science Research Council. He is currently completing a long-term project on sex work in New York and Chicago with the economist Steven Levitt.