Sociology Faculty

Research Interests

Labor and labor markets, political sociology, globalization and social change, migration and racial formation, Southeast Asia, community-engaged research.

Biography, Education and Training

2001 - Ph.D., Sociology, University of Wisconsin - Madison
1996 - M.A., Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin - Madison
1989 - B.A., Political Economy of Industrial Societies, University of California - Berkeley

Steve McKay is associate professor of Sociology and Director of the UCSC Center for Labor Studies.  His research has focused on labor, gender, migration, racial formation, and globalization.  He is currently working on a book, based on historical and multi-sited ethnographic research, focused on the rise and reproduction of ethno-national labor niches in contemporary global labor markets.  The book, focused on global shipping, is entitled Born to Sail? Race, Masculinity and the Making of Filipino Seafarers.  Steve is also working locally in the Santa Cruz area on a series of community-initiated student-engaged research (CISER) projects: We Belong We Belong - Collaboration for Community-Engaged Research and Immigrant Justice; Working for Dignity - the Low Wage Worker Study of Santa Cruz County; No Place Like Home - The Affordable Housting Crisis Study of SC County.

Honors, Awards and Grants

Awards/Honors

• 2019. Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Teaching, UCSC Division of Social Sciences

• 2017. Community Hero, United Way of Santa Cruz County, Community Assessment Project
• 2015.  Community Game Changer Award, Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County
• 2012. UC Santa Cruz Chancellor's Achievement Award for Diversity.
• 2011. Visiting Senior Research Fellowship at the National University of Singapore, Asia Research Institute, Migration Studies Cluster.
• 2010.  Teaching: Award for Universal Design in Instruction from the University of California – Santa Cruz’s Disability Resource Center. 

Grants

• 2021. Collaborative Projects Grant, Arts Research Institute, UCSC. Project: Watsonville is in the Heart: Art & The Oral History Archive - $5,000
• 2020. UC Collaborative to Promote Immigrant and Student Equity. Project: We Belong: Collaboration for Community-Engaged Research and Immigrant Justice - $10,000
  
• 2019. Student Fee Advisory Committee, UCSC, Project: We Belong: Collaboration for Community-Engaged Research and Immigrant Justice - $45,000
• 2018. Service Employees International Union, Local 251, Project: “Affordable Housing Research Project” - $15,000
• 2016. Student Success Initiative Grant, University of California Office of the President,Project: “Community Engaged Research Practicum” - $100,000
• 2016. Engaging Humanities Project Grant, 2016-17, University of California Humanities Research Institute. Project: “No Place Like Home: Voices and Visions of the Housing Crisis in Santa Cruz County” - $27,000
• 2015. John E. Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Culture, Andrew Mellon Foundation. project title: "Non-citizenship". CO-PIs: C. Ramirez, J. Poblete, S. Falcon and F. Amaya Shaeffer. $178,000.
• 2014-2015. Engaging Humanities Public Humanities Project Grant,  University of California Humanities Research Institute Project: “Working for Dignity:  Rural-Urban Stories in a Changing California.” $20,000.

Selected Publications

Books

• 2006. Satanic Mills or Silicon Islands?: The Politics of High-Tech Production in the Philippines. Cornell University/ILR Press. Co-published in the Philippines by Ateneo de Manila University Press. 

Edited Books

• 2021. Precarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship, Rutgers University Press, co-edited with Catherine S. Ramírez, Juan Poblete, Sylvanna M. Falcón, and Felicity Amaya Schaeffer. 
• 2012. New Routes for Diaspora Studies. Indiana University Press. Co-edited with S. Banerjee and A. McGuinness.

Contributions to Books

• 2021. “First Publics’ as Knowledge Producers: Integrating Students into Organic Public Sociology” co-authored with M. Greenberg, and R. London, in L. Hossfeld, E. B. Kelly, and C. Hossfeld (eds). The Routledge International Handbook of Public Sociology. London and New York: Routledge Press
  
• 2015. “'So They Remember Me When I’m Gone’: Remittances, Fatherhood and Gender Relations of Filipino Migrant Men,” in Transnational Labour Migration, Remittances and the Changing Family in Asia. Palgrave MacMillan Press.
• 2014. “Racializing the High Seas: Filipino Migrants and Global Shipping,” in The Nation and Its Peoples: Citizens, Denizens, Migrants. Routledge Press.
• 2012. “Masculinities Afloat: Filipino Seafarers and the Situational Performance of Manhood at Sea, in Port, and at Home,” in Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia. Routledge Press.

Journal Articles

• 2021.“Navigating Race: Intersectional Boundary-Making onboard Multi-national Ships,” Ethnic and Racial Studies

• 2021 “The Right to the City and to the University: Forging Solidarity Across the Town/Gown Divide” co-authored with B. Ferman, M. Greenberg, and T. Le, The Assembly: A Journal for Public Scholarship on Education, issue 3, Spring: 10-34.

• 2020. Report from the Graduate Student Cost of Attendance and Living Calculator Project,” co-authored with J. Bowin, M. Greenberg, V. Hamilton, B. Schumm, A. Sharma, and N. Singh, University of California, Santa Cruz Academic Senate

• 2019. "The Vitality of Students for Public Sociology." co-authored with M Greenberg and R London. Contexts: Sociology for the Public.
• 2019. "Community-Initiated Student-Engaged Research: Explanding Undergraduate Teaching and Learning through Public Sociology." co-authored with M Greenberg and R London. Teaching Sociology
• 2016. "Working for Dignity"- The Santa Cruz Low-Wage Worker Study: Final Report." UCSC Center for Labor Studies
• 2011. "Re-Masculinizing the Hero: Filipino Migrant Men and Gender Privilege." Asia Research Institute Working Paper Series 172 - National University of Singapore. 
• 2007. "Filipino Sea Men: Constructing Masculinities in an Ethnic Labour Niche." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
• 2006. "The Scalar Strategies of Capital, State and Labor in Evolving Philippine Economic Zones." Journal of Comparative Asian Development.

Selected Presentations