Research Interests

• Race/Ethnicity
• Law and Society
• Cultural Sociology
• Race/Class/Gender
• Black Feminist Theory
• Qualitative Methods
• Community and Citizenship
• Communication and Information Technology

Courses Taught at Texas A&M

• SOCI 210: Sociology of Science and Technology
• SOCI 212: Sociology of Popular Culture
• SOCI 315: The Marriage Institution
• SOCI 404: Sociology of Community
• SOCI 445: Sociology of Law
• SOCI 603: The Contemporary Family
• SOCI 624: Qualitative Methods
• SOCI 629: Sociology of Law
• SOCI 651: Sociology of Culture
• SOCI 657: Popular Culture

Bio

I am most interested in how people organize themselves in terms of community and citizenship. These two concepts both run parallel to one another, and are two ends of a continuum. Because “community” and “citizenship” are broad, contested processes, there are many ways one can study them. I focused my analyses initially upon gender and race as they intersect with these processes. I am also concerned with their significance as cultural systems, and as ideologies that permeate all our lives. I have moved back and forth from a focus on policy and law, and thus the more formal process of citizenship, to a more generalized focus on the micro- to macro-level processes of identity, community, and citizenship, and the connections between these processes. I have been student organization advisor for:

• Sustainable Agriculture Student Association/The Urban Howdy Farm http://tamuhowdyfarm.weebly.com/meet-the-farmers.html
• Ags REACH https://reach4home.org/about/#agsreach

Representative Publications

• McNeely A, Cisneros M, Sanchez V, and Gatson SN (2025). “Religious Food Pantry Culture: Effects on Nutrition Policies and Practices.” Food, Culture, & Society, online first September 23, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2022.2126228. Forthcoming in print, August 2025.
• Kim Y, Yu S, Li D, Gatson SN, and Brown RD (2022). “Linking landscape spatial heterogeneity to urban heat island and outdoor human thermal comfort in Tokyo: Application of the outdoor thermal comfort index.” Sustainable Cities and Society 87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2022.104262 (Online first, 10/19/22).
• Gatson SN, Cisneros M, Brown R, Aitkenhead-Peterson JA, and Zhang Y (2021). “Urban Networks, Micro Agriculture, and Community Food Security.” Special issue of Circular Economy and Sustainability, “TAMU Convergence Research.” Published online, November 18, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-021-00117-x.
• Gatson SN (2011). “The Methods, Ethics, and Politics of Representation in Online Ethnography,” In Handbook of Qualitative Research, Eds. Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln, 4th Edition, Sage, 513-527.
• Gatson SN (2011). “Self-Naming Practices on the Internet: Identity, Authenticity, and Community.” Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies, 11 (3): 224-235.
• Gatson SN and Zweerink A (2004). Interpersonal Culture on the Internet – Television, the Internet, and the Making of a Community, Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press: Studies in Sociology Series, no. 40.