Davíd Cook-Martín

Major Publications

David Cook-Martín holds a a Ph.D. in Sociology from UCLA, an MA in Sociology from the University of Houston, and B.A. from Wheaton College. He has also worked in the child welfare field as director of a multi-disciplinary nonprofit. David is a former Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Latin American Sociology Mellon (UCLA), and a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow (UC Irvine). 

David’s work examines interconnected migration and nationality policies in the Americas and Europe as a way to understand political membership and belonging from a transnational perspective. His research interests broadly include: race and ethnicity (Ph.D field exam in this area), social inequalities, international migration, citizenship, sociology of Latin America, political sociology, sociology of law, sociology of religion, historical-comparative and ethnographic methods (Ph.D. field exam in this area).

David is especially interested in the relationship between ethno-racial legal categories and ideologies of universal equality. His work appears in the Journal of Historical Sociology, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, the Journal of Interdisciplinary History and Citenship Studies. He has also published chapters on transnational religious networks, ethnic return migration, and Latin American migrations to Spain. David recently published a book on the competitive dynamics that characterize the formulation of citizenship policies in Argentina, Italy, and Spain (The Scramble for Citizens: Dual Nationality and State Competition for Immigrants, Stanford University Press). Here's a blogpost about The Scramble for Citizens.

David is currently working on a mixed-methods project entitled Race, Immigration and Citizenship in the Americas that studies the links between political liberalism and racialized preferences in the immigration and nationality laws of 22 countries in the Americas since 1790 (NSF, Division of Social and Economic Sciences, Grant # SES-0819571). Ten Grinnell students have worked with David in completing research on this project. A book manuscript entitled Culling the Masses: The Democratic Roots of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas (with David FitzGerald, UCSD) is under contract with Harvard University Press. 

David enjoys teaching, mentoring, and working with students on inquiry-based projects. Visit the Mentored Advanced Projects page or his teaching page for more information. He also enjoys engaging in public debates about immigration, citizenship, and race. In his “spare” time, David likes to watch or play the beautiful game (the fútbol you actually play with your feet), build skateboards for his kids, and spend time with Marley, a black lab for whom he often retrieves balls.