Michael Musheno

Michael Musheno is professor of law and faculty director of legal studies at the University of Oregon. His teaching and writing focus on the social agency of youth, the state's frontline workforce, organizational environments, and the social and cultural dynamics of conflict in everyday life. His scholarship draws substantially upon narratives, particularly the storytelling of subjects and agents of the state and uses interpretive field methods. His current book project, Navigating Conflict: How Youth Handle Trouble in a High Poverty School is in press and scheduled for publication in March 2018 (University of Chicago Press). Co-authored with Calvin Morrill, it draws upon sixteen years of ethnographic fieldwork to reveal the social ingenuity with which urban teens informally and peacefully navigate strife-ridden peer trouble in a school environment that fosters trust instead of suspicion, mobility instead of containment.