Welcome
Michelle Smirnova is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Affiliate Faculty member of the Race, Ethnic, & Gender Studies department at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
Her research interests include: medical sociology, science knowledge & technology, social movements, and qualitative methods.
Her first book, The Prescription-to-Prison Pipeline: An Intersectional Analysis of the Medicalization and Criminalization of Pain (Duke University Press 2023) draws upon interviews with eighty incarcerated individuals to illustrate how contradictions in medical practices, social ideals, and legal policies disproportionately medicalize and criminalize already-marginalized populations. Instead of offering social support and financial resources as a means of remedying structural inequalities, Dr. Smirnova argues that individualized medical and criminal approaches end up exacerbating rather than ameliorating problems.
Currently, Dr. Smirnova is writing a book about KC Tenants, a grassroots organization fighting for housing justice. In this monograph, she explores the historical political, social, and financial factors that gave rise to this social movement, as well as how the organization have productively responded to these events and trends.
Finally, she has been researching DIY science in pre- and post-COVID contexts, seeking to understand how and why communities move science from institutional settings and into individual homes and community spaces.
Across her research and professional experience, Dr. Smirnova has developed methodological skills in content and discourse analysis, cognitive and semi-structured interviewing, focus groups, survey design, as well as ethnography. She is particularly attentive to issues of power, trust, and inequality, both as research and teaching subjects, but also as something in which she is an active participant.
Her research interests include: medical sociology, science knowledge & technology, social movements, and qualitative methods.
Her first book, The Prescription-to-Prison Pipeline: An Intersectional Analysis of the Medicalization and Criminalization of Pain (Duke University Press 2023) draws upon interviews with eighty incarcerated individuals to illustrate how contradictions in medical practices, social ideals, and legal policies disproportionately medicalize and criminalize already-marginalized populations. Instead of offering social support and financial resources as a means of remedying structural inequalities, Dr. Smirnova argues that individualized medical and criminal approaches end up exacerbating rather than ameliorating problems.
Currently, Dr. Smirnova is writing a book about KC Tenants, a grassroots organization fighting for housing justice. In this monograph, she explores the historical political, social, and financial factors that gave rise to this social movement, as well as how the organization have productively responded to these events and trends.
Finally, she has been researching DIY science in pre- and post-COVID contexts, seeking to understand how and why communities move science from institutional settings and into individual homes and community spaces.
Across her research and professional experience, Dr. Smirnova has developed methodological skills in content and discourse analysis, cognitive and semi-structured interviewing, focus groups, survey design, as well as ethnography. She is particularly attentive to issues of power, trust, and inequality, both as research and teaching subjects, but also as something in which she is an active participant.
