I’m Dr. Michele Cadigan, a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Arizona State University in the T. Denny Sanford School of Social & Family Dynamics. My work brings together theoretical insights from the study of race & ethnicity, socio-legal studies, and economic sociology to show how the criminal legal system (CLS) and economic markets combine to create intersectional inequalities and construct racial meaning. My work has appeared in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science , RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, and the Journal for Contemporary Criminal Justice.
I am currently working on a book project tentatively titled Cannabis-Infused Dreams: Constructing Opportunity in a New Market for Cannabis, which extends my dissertation work in Seattle to Boston and San Francisco to examine how city and state-level regulations and criminal reforms combine with cannabis retailer’s everyday practices to create new forms of racial inequality in recreational cannabis markets.
Approaching cannabis sales as a case of a moralizing market with deep roots in anti-Black racist and xenophobic criminal legal and economic policy, I work to show how racial hierarchies are reproduced or challenged by lawmakers as they set policies and sellers as they exchange goods. Research on legal change and economic inequality typically focuses on markets or the CLS, and within each, looks at one level of analysis, for instance analyzing penal outcomes. In this work, I look at how racial inequality is reproduced at multiple levels across different institutions simultaneously, and that attempts to address racial injustice in the CLS and markets must consider how inequality is reproduced jointly through narrative claims, economic opportunities, and legal frameworks.
In a second line of research, I have co-authored five peer-review articles centering around the use and consequences of legal financial obligations (LFOs) using data collected as part of the Multi-State Study of Monetary Sanctions. Collectively, my work in this area highlights my academic motivation to call attention to how LFOs intersect with different identities to reify inequality. More broadly, this fits into my research agenda that reveals the multiple connections between economic markets and the CLS that marginalize individuals along intersecting identities such as race, ethnicity, citizenship status, socio-economic class, and disability.
Outside of academia, I draw on my expertise on racial justice and economic equity in the context of cannabis legalization as a consultant for local and state entities and organizations to help further equity in the industry and I have been featured in a number of documentaries. Most recently, I have worked with the Washington State Legislative Task Force for Social Equity in Cannabis to identify areas in the state disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs that will be used to shape a new statewide cannabis equity business licensing program.
My work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, the Addictions, Drugs, and Alcohol Institute (ADAI), the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies (HBCLS), and the Center for Demography and Ecology (CSDE)