On Halloween, Brandon Alston ’14 returned to Haverford to share his current research about policing and countersurveillance as part of the College’s Young Academic Alumni Lecture Series. His talk was focused on his recent article, “Recognizing ‘camera cues’: policing, cellphones and citizen countersurveillance,” published by Cambridge University Press in June.
Alston conducted research with 72 predominantly incarcerated Black men in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood to investigate citizen-generated videos of police misconduct. “People are recording strategically based on whether they feel police violence is on the horizon,” he says. Camera cues, or the indicators that people should start recording police, he says, often come after police officers have shown aggression to a victim in some way.
After Haverford, Alston earned a master of science in management from Wake Forest University in 2016 and recently earned his PhD in sociology from Northwestern University in 2023. Currently, he is an assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State University, where he teaches on race, urban sociology, and crime, among other topics.
He credits much of his current academic pursuits to his time at Haverford, where he graduated as a double major in religion and sociology with distinction. He was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow (MMUF), which enables students of historically marginalized identities to pursue a career in higher education by providing funding and mentorship.
He says he is particularly thankful for Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology Profesor Zolani Ngwame, “who created a lot of space for me to think about things that were taken up in my senior thesis that have now become part of my research trajectory.” Professor Tracy Hucks, who taught religion and Africana studies at Haverford for 15 years and returned to campus this in April as part of a distinguished visitor talk, also deeply impacted Alston.
“I took a religion and ethnography course with her that changed my life. She invested a lot of time in teaching me methodology around ethnography that is humane, justice-centered, and community-centered.”Alston says. “The way that I approach methodology now is very much informed by that class.”
As a student, Alston was very active in the Haverford community. He served as Co-President of the Black Students League and organized Culture Shock, its fashion show, in his sophmore year. During the winter of his senior year, he joined two other MMUF fellows in Capetown, South Africa, where they attended the conference “Cape Town: A City of Contrasts” that gathered fellows from South Africa and the U.S.
Even after graduation, Alston has remained connected to the Haverford community. In 2022, he was awarded the Young Alumni Award and has been connected with the progression of the MMUF program, serving as a mentor to the current fellows. Associate Dean of Student Life Theresa Tensuan worked closely with Alston as a fellow. “Alston is a mentor and throughline for students interested in how a professional pathway in academia can still connect you to your community,” Tensuan says.
Kalia Boutier, a senior sociology major and current MMUF fellow interested in housing and housing policy, in addition to racial capitalism and eviction, found many connections between their own research and Alston’s. “To know that [Alston was] in the same place as I was and was able to follow through with it was really gratifying,” they say.