faculty

 

Erik Larson, Assistant Professor
BA Hamline University 1992, MA University of Minnesota 1997, PhD University of Minnesota 2004

Erik Larson is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Macalester College. His fields of interest include sociology of law, political sociology, economic sociology, and comparative-historical sociology. He received his B.A. from Hamline University and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. His courses at Macalester include Law and Society, Criminal Behavior / Social Control, Political Sociology, Economic Sociology, Indigenous Peoples' Movements in Global Context, Senior Seminar and Science and Social Inquiry (the department's quantitatively-oriented research methods course). His research focuses on the emergence and transformation of legal, economic, and political institutions in relation to the global and national developments. For this research, he has traveled to Fiji, Ghana, Iceland, Switzerland, and Japan. Recent and current research projects include analysis of the political contention concerning economic affirmative action policies targeted on the basis of indigenous status; examination of the establishment and operation of new young stock exchanges; investigation of the nexus between the global indigenous rights movement and national and regional indigenous rights movements; and study of reconciliation in the aftermath of coups in relation to political contention and the rule of law. In addition, Professor Larson has collaborated with Macalester students to study the Ainu rights movement in Japan in relation to the global indigenous rights movement and to examine factors associated with school-wide performance on standardized tests in Minnesota.