cathy hu

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at UC Berkeley. I use qualitative methods to examine sociopolitical struggles over the meanings and practices of criminal justice and racial justice. 

My dissertation examines the county criminal court as a new site of intervention for social movements from across the political spectrum. Through a comparative ethnography of activists in the Bay Area following the George Floyd and Stop Asian Hate protests, I explore: 1) how activists link their visions of criminal justice and racial justice; 2) how they advance these visions through interventions into the court; and 3) how these processes vary across groups with divergent orientations and aims. In this study, I show how the everyday work of local activists contributes to dynamics of reform and retrenchment in the politics of crime, punishment, and race more broadly. 

My research has been supported by the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues - Asian American Research Center, Center for the Study of Law and Society, and Greater Good Science Center.

Prior to graduate school, I was a research analyst at the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center in Washington, DC. I also hold a BA in Sociology from Rice University in Houston, TX.