Summary

My research program seeks to develop a sociocultural psychology of agency and well-being within the context of precarious 21st century conditions. In recent years, social scientists have increasingly turned their attention to the concept of precarious life and precarious conditions to shed light on the vulnerabilities faced by individuals and communities within ever-more uncertain local and global circumstances (e.g., Appadurai, 2001; Butler, 2004, 2010; De Genova & Peutz, 2010). Precarious life refers to a state of existence marked by instability, insecurity, and unpredictability, often stemming from a nexus of factors such as economic inequality, political upheaval, environmental and climate crises, immigration, technological advancements, and social injustices.  Although the term helps expose the experiences of marginalized groups, it also encompasses the growing precariousness faced by all persons considering global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.

In recent years, psychologists have shown growing interest in the effects of marginalization and oppression, revealing how various societal systems such as neoliberalism (Sugarman, 2015), racism and (post)colonialism (Bhatia, 2017), patriarchy (Chodorow, 2014), and immigration (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2018) impact people’s lives. Yet, much of the research has focused on the adverse effects of marginalization and oppression, leaving unclear (a) how individuals within precarious social settings find ways to build meaningful lives despite their challenges; and (b) what social factors and resources are needed to support their well-being.

My research addresses these gaps by drawing upon sociocultural psychological theory to investigate the possibilities for well-being and agency within this rapidly changing 21st century context. To date, most of my research has centered on the experiences of undocumented immigrants, who occupy some of the most precarious social positions in society, lacking rights to live and work legally within destination countries and facing ever-present fears of apprehension and deportation. Working with this population has in turn helped me identify unique modes of agency, resilience, and well-being suited for surviving these contexts. As I explain below, moving forward, I am eager to expand my work on agency and well-being through research with other immigrant and non-immigrant groups who face other forms of precariousness both at individual and community levels. 

I am also interested studying strategies that help persons reckon with precariousness, especially mindfulness and other Buddhist-related practices (e.g., self-compassion), as these approaches begin from the premise that the self as well as all human existence are characterized by change, and thus a major goal is to cultivate attention to, and acceptance of, an everchanging reality (Shapiro, 2015). Indeed, I have already found mindfulness practices to be helpful in my direct work supporting undocumented students, and there is a substantive body of work that demonstrates the psychological and physiological benefits of mindfulness interventions (Davis & Hayes, 2011). Nevertheless, social psychological work is still needed to explore how, and to what extent, such practices can help persons reckon with precariousness caused by persistent structural and/or systemic disadvantages.

Notably, while sociocultural theory guides my research program, I readily integrate methodological and theoretical insights from sociology, anthropology, healthcare studies, and legal studies to help me examine social processes and their psychological impacts. Accordingly, I have published my work in prominent journals across the social sciences, including Culture & Psychology, Theory & Psychology, Research in Human Development, Journal of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, Journal of Adolescent Research, Migration Studies, Mobilities, Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, and Law & Social Inquiry. In what follows, I discuss my research program through two interrelated strands, one focused on agency and the other on well-being. Thereafter, I discuss my community engaged projects and long-term research goals.

Strand 1: Agency in Precarious Conditions

The central questions that drive this research strand comprise:

• How and when do individuals experience and/or exercise agency within precarious life circumstances?

• What circumstances are needed to build agency at the individual and community level?

• How can sociocultural psychological research enhance our understanding of agency as a dynamic, social and developmental process?

Sociocultural Theory

Early in my career, I conducted close examinations of psychological, philosophical, and religious (Buddhist) theories of self and human experience, leading to several papers in psychology in which I theorized the socially situated, dynamic, and temporal nature of the self (Ellis & Stam, 2010, 2015a, 2015c). I also outlined how social understandings of the self and human development evolved within the history of cultural and cross-cultural psychology in a well-cited paper in Culture & Psychology (Ellis & Stam, 2015b).

Agency in Cycles of Deportability

To study how persons navigated precarious conditions, I took interest in the lives of undocumented immigrants in Canada. Since at the time there was limited knowledge of this group’s daily lives, between 2012 and 2014, I pursued ethnographic research with Polish undocumented immigrants in Toronto. Findings from my research revealed that living with a precarious immigration status involved a dynamic, cyclical and developmental process—one that I conceptualized as “cycles of deportability.” Specifically, I found that my respondents had to navigate repeatedly occurring status-related barriers and threats, which regularly spurred acute, status-related fears, as well as contributed to chronic fears and concerns over time. Additionally, I observed that, in response to these challenges, my respondents developed common forms of “creative agencies” that involved growing resourceful and imaginative to address unique practical and psychological challenges. These findings showed how agency was operative within precarious conditions and indeed drove the course of undocumented immigrants’ capacities for survival.

This study offered a first glimpse into the social psychology of migrant “illegality,” for which I was awarded a Certificate of Academic Excellence for a Doctoral Dissertation from the Canadian Psychological Association. I published my findings in the interdisciplinary journal, Migration Studies (Ellis & Stam, 2017) as well as drew upon this work to write a theoretical paper, published in Culture & Psychology, which outlines how concepts such as “cycles of deportability” and “cultural citizenship” can help sociocultural psychologists examine the stratified nature of human experiences without reducing persons to mere effects of political systems (Ellis & Bhatia, 2018).

Variations in Cycles of Deportability

Between 2015 and 2017, I conducted additional ethnographic research as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago, where I studied the experiences of ethnically and racially diverse youth who were undocumented and/or from mixed-status families (i.e., where at least one parent was undocumented). This research helped me both confirm the operations of cycles of deportability as well as identify variations in how immigrants variably navigated the cycles based on national context, racial/ethnic background, developmental stage, and immigrant generation. I published my comparative findings (between Canada and the United States) in the prominent journal Law & Social Inquiry (Ellis, 2021).

Drawing upon this work, I led a collaborative study focused on racial and ethnic differences in undocumented youth’s cycles of deportability, focusing on differences between White, Asian, and Latina/o/x youth. This work was published in the Journal of Adolescent Research in 2022. Findings from this study showed clear differences between the experiences of Latina/o/x and non-Latina/o/x immigrant youth, as only the former experienced frequent, racialized status-related threats from others that began during their childhood years. Because non-Latina/o/x youth were not stereotyped for ‘being undocumented,’ they could more readily avoid status-related threats from others during childhood. Yet, because all undocumented youth eventually come to face major status-related barriers when they come of age, the findings showed how non-Latina/o/x youth were less prepared than their Latina/o/x counterparts to meet these challenges—as they did not learn from young ages how to seek help and access resources to the same degree as Latina/o/x youth. This study revealed not only racialized variations in agency development among undocumented youth, but also the integral role of social supports in developing agency in precarious conditions.

Agency in Supportive Settings

Building on the aforementioned work, I sought to better understand the impact of social supports on undocumented youth agency and well-being. In 2021, I collaborated with Dr. Carly Offidani-Bertrand from CSU San Marcos to examine the psychosocial impact of Undocumented Student Resource Centers (USRCs) in California on undocumented students. USRCs refer to institutionally supported, physical spaces on campus that offer resources and services to help undocumented students as well as those from mixed-status families to overcome academic and personal barriers related to their immigration status (Cisneros et al. 2022). Through online interviews with USRC Coordinators and students, we found that these centers are deeply transformative for undocumented students. For instance, in a forthcoming paper (under review with the Journal of College Student Development), we show how students who engage with USRCs experience increased feelings of safety, belonging, and hope. Further, by accessing resources and engaging in professional opportunities at USRCs, undocumented students grow more open, confident, and resourceful in overcoming their status-related challenges—thereby growing more agentic in the face of precarious conditions.

Theorizing Agency as a Socio-Cultural Process

Having observed the powerful impacts of USRCs on undocumented students’ agency, I am now working on another manuscript with Dr. Carly Offidani-Bertrand as well as Dr. Lynda Stone, wherein we are comparing data from the USRC study with data from another supportive setting: an afterschool program led by Dr. Stone. Our goal is to identify the mechanisms through which supportive settings promote agency development, which will help us outline a more general framework for studying agency as a dynamic, sociocultural and developmental process. I am excited about the theoretical contribution of this paper, as I intend to draw upon our framework to examine how other immigrant and non-immigrant groups develop agency in other social settings (more on this below).

Strand 2: Well-Being in Precarious Conditions

My studies of undocumented immigrant experiences demonstrated that there is variability in how persons interpret precarious conditions and correspondingly, there is variability in psychological well-being. Further, the power of well-being in precarious conditions became evident in my research with 1.5 generation undocumented immigrants in the United States. These are youth who arrived to the U.S. as children and subsequently grew up there without legal authorization to work, financial aid for college, and other social provisions. In working with this group, I saw firsthand how those who managed to maintain hope, grow resourceful, and build reliable social relations were much more capable not only of avoiding despair and isolation, but also of experiencing well-being and developing positive identities. These observations motivated a second strand in my research program focused on well-being, wherein I seek to answer the following questions:

• How do precarious conditions impact the possibilities for well-being?

• What strategies and interventions enhance well-being for persons reckoning wih precarious conditions?

• How can psychologists theorize well-being within precarious conditions?

Well-Being Among DACA Recipients in the United States

To understand the possibilities for well-being among undocumented youth, I began collaborating with sociologist Dr. Roberto Gonzales on a large-scale, interview project examining how the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy shaped the psychosocial development of 408 ethnically diverse undocumented youth and young adults living across six US states. Our first paper revealed how DACA had a nearly immediate, positive impact on its recipients’ psychosocial development, as its provisions offered them experiences of safety and security to pursue more self-determined life projects, as well as more opportunities to take on more normative adult roles (Gonzales et al., 2018). This paper received the Erin Phelps Award from the Society for the Study of Human Development for the best article published in Research in Human Development between 2017-2019.

Our second paper drew upon critical psychological theory to examine how DACA impacted the well-being of undocumented youth and young adults by improving what migration scholars have described as a condition of “abjectivity” (Ellis et al., 2018). Abjectivity combines the notion of “abject,” a politically and socially excluded member of society, with “subjectivity” in order to theorize the experience of living as an excluded member of society (Willen, 2007). Our findings in turn revealed how DACA altered the condition of abjectivity for DACA recipients by broadening their opportunities for agency and belonging. Thus, this paper revealed a relationship between agency and well-being in precarious conditions, showing how experiences of well-being are more likely when undocumented immigrants have opportunities to exercise their agency.

Well-Being Among Undocumented College Students in California

In 2017, I was excited to move and continue my work in California, as the state is home to both the largest number of undocumented immigrants and the most supportive “package” of state immigration policies in the United States, one that in recent decades has helped significantly improve the living conditions of immigrant communities (Ramakrishnan & Colbern, 2015). In California, undocumented immigrants have access to in-state college tuition rates, state-funded financial aid for postsecondary education, drivers’ licenses, professional licenses, expanded health care, and in various ways are protected from federal immigration enforcement. While these provisions do not resolve the fears and uncertainties that plague undocumented immigrants’ daily lives, they nevertheless provide more opportunities for immigrants to build meaningful lives even in challenging conditions.

Seeking to better understand the social contexts faced by undocumented students in California, I collaborated with scholars from both the UC and CSU systems to survey 1,277 undocumented college students about their academic experiences. Our findings revealed a heterogeneity of undocumented student experiences, which included both persistent challenges with status-related barriers as well as experiences with supportive persons and programs on campus. I worked with my collaborators to summarize these findings in a policy report (Enriquez, 2021b) (Enriquez, Ayón, et al., 2021)and a research article in Journal of Latinos and Education (Enriquez, 2021a). In a follow-up article, published with the Journal of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, we discuss what individual, micro, and macro-level factors contribute to our respondents’ use of mental health services on and off campus.

Well-Being in Supportive Settings

As noted within my “agency strand” above, I also launched a collaborative research project with immigration scholar Dr. Carly Offidani-Bertrand to explore the psychosocial impact of Undocumented Student Resource Centers (USRCs) in California on undocumented students. Here, within the context of my “well-being” research strand, I want to highlight how I also conducted separate analyses of this research to publish a sole-authored paper in a special issue of Mobilities, a recognized interdisciplinary migration journal. Within that paper, I show how USRCs foster “existential well-being” in undocumented students through two main mechanisms: “existential dwelling” (an increased sense of belonging) and “existential mobility” (a broadened sense of future horizons). 

Theorizing Well-Being in Precarious Conditions

My research on well-being in precarious conditions deliberately challenges dominant views of marginalization and oppression that tend to focus on people’s vulnerabilities without simultaneously recognizing their strengths and transformative capacities. Further, I seek to shed light on well-being experiences that are not dependent on the eradication of precarious conditions in an effort to show how well-being experiences are not only integral for surviving such conditions but also for pursuing social change.  

Currently, I am working on a book manuscript, tentatively titled, “Well-Being in Precarious Conditions” in which I am drawing upon my research with undocumented immigrants in Canada and the United States to help theorize what well-being looks like for this group and what it takes to achieve it. At a theoretical level, this work will show how psychological accounts of well-being need to be situated within the psycho-social realities of specific groups—in the case of undocumented immigrants, this means understanding well-being within the reality of cycles of deportability. As I explain below (under Concluding Remarks and Long-Term Plans), my goal is to build upon this research to explore what well-being looks like for other social groups facing precariousness, and with this, I seek to better understand other strategies for maintaining well-being in precarious conditions.

Community Engaged Projects

In addition to expanding theory and research on agency and well-being, my scholarship has consistently taken an applied, community-engaged approach to support the communities with which I work. Indeed, much of my interest in exploring the role of USRCs stems from my own experience collaborating with staff and students from the Dreamer Resource Center (DRC) at Sacramento State. Further, I have pursued a number of projects to support the well-being of undocumented and mixed-status family students and to train educators, administrators, and counselors on how to support them.

For example, during my first year at Sacramento State, I launched a support group for students impacted by undocumented status, which involved developing relevant curriculum for the group and leading weekly group sessions for five years. I am proud to say that the group continues to meet on a weekly basis under the leadership of the DRC coordinator, offering a space for students to discuss topics pertinent to maintaining well-being in the face of status-related barriers. In 2019, I acquired funding from the DRC to launch a four-part webinar series entitled, “Addressing the Undocumented Stress Cycle” (Ellis, 2019), wherein I introduced various professionals to the cycles of deportability framework through case examples from my research. Over 1000 educators, counselors, and other professionals registered for the series. Positive feedback from this work in turn pointed to the need for this kind of knowledge and training among non-academic audiences.

In 2019, I received additional funding from the DRC to interview undocumented students, community members, and K12 educators to develop a research-informed, video-recorded “UndocuAlly Training” suitable for K12 educators, administrators, and counselors (Ellis, 2020). During the same year, I acquired funding from the American Psychological Association and Sacramento State’s Research Fellows Program to work with students to develop undocuwisdom.com, a research-based website that shares the stories, life lessons, and advice of undocumented participants from my research in an effort to support other youth facing similar situations. Finally, in 2021, funding from the DRC helped me develop a virtual, college-level “UndocuAlly Training” that recently became the standard training offered to educators, counselors, and staff at Sacramento State to help support undocumented and mixed-status family students.

Long-Term Research Plans

Thus far, my work has explored agency and well-being primarily through research with undocumented immigrants. While this work has given me an important foundation for theorizing these concepts, given the various forms of precariousness characterizing life in the 21st century as well as the inherent uncertainty of human existence more generally, I view precariousness as a psychosocial process experienced by all persons in varying ways. For this reason, I am eager to expand my research to explore other forms of precariousness through research with other immigrant and non-immigrant groups. Further, I am interested in studying psycho-social strategies for coping with precariousness, especially mindfulness practices.

References

Appadurai, A. (Ed.). (2001). Globalization. Duke University Press.

Aron, A. R. (2019). The climate crisis needs attention from cognitive scientists. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(11), 903-906. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.08.001

Bhatia, S. (2017). Decolonizing psychology: Globalization, social justice, and Indian youth identities. Oxford University Press.

Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. Verso.

Butler, J. (2010). Frames of war: When is life grievable? Verso.

Chodorow, N. J. (2014). Femininities, masculinities, sexualities: Freud and beyond. University Press of Kentucky.

Cisneros, J., Valdivia, D., Reyna Rivarola, A. R., & Russell, F. (2022). “I’m here to fight along with you”: Undocumented student resource centers creating possibilities. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 15(5), 607.

Davis, D. M., & Hayes, J. A. (2011). What are the benefits of mindfulness? A practice review of psychotherapy-related research. Psychotherapy, 48(2),198. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022062  

Dobkins, K. R., Dickenson, J., Lindsay, D., & Bondi, T. (2023). Mental health and resilience in the climate crisis: A case study of well-being courses targeting college students.

Ellis, B. D. (2019). Addressing the undocumented stress cycle: A four-part webinar series for educators and professionals seeking to support the well-being of young people impacted by undocumented status. Dreamer Resource Center at California State University Sacramento. https://www.csus.edu/student-affairs/centers-programs/dreamer-resource-center/

Ellis, B. D. (2020). K12 UndocuAlly Training. https://mysacstate-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/basia_ellis_csus_edu/EVx2OuEM3cZHoox95b_RHyoBupZWGw_PoQRZewhhuGdkdA?e=rVx8Jp

Ellis, B. D. (2021). The Psychology of Migrant “Illegality”: A General Theory. Law & Social Inquiry, 1-36. https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2021.13

Ellis, B. D., & Bhatia, S. (2018). Cultural psychology for a new era of citizenship politics. Culture & Psychology, 25(2), 220-240. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X18808760

Ellis, B. D., Gonzales, R. G., & Rendón Garcia, S. (2018). The power of inclusion: Theorizing “Abjectivity” and Agency under DACA. Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708618817880

Ellis, B. D., & Stam, H. J. (2010). Addressing the other in dialogue: Ricoeur and the ethical dimensions of the dialogical self. Theory & Psychology, 20(3), 420-435. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354310364280

Ellis, B. D., & Stam, H. J. (2015a). Buddhism, dialogical self theory, and the ethics of shared positions. International Journal for Dialogical Science, 9, 115-134.

Ellis, B. D., & Stam, H. J. (2015b). Crisis? What crisis? Cross-cultural psychology’s appropriation of cultural psychology. Culture & Psychology, 21(3), 293-317.

Ellis, B. D., & Stam, H. J. (2015c). Heidegger, temporality, and dialogical self theory. In Temporality: Culture in the Flow of Human Experience (pp. 259-282). Information Age Publishers.

Ellis, B. D., & Stam, H. J. (2017). Cycles of deportability: Threats, fears, and the agency of “irregular” migrants in Canada. Migration Studies, 6(3), 321-344. https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnx049

Enriquez, L. E., Ayón, C., Chavarria, K., Ellis, B. D., Hagan, M. J., Jefferies, J., Lara, J., Morales Hernandez, M., Murillo, E. G., Nájera, J. R., Offidani-Bertrand, C., Oropeza Fujimoto, M., Ro, A., Rodriguez, V. E., Rosales, W. E., Sarabia, H., Soltero López, A. K., Valadez, M., Velarde Pierce, S., & Valdez, Z. (2021). Persisting inequalities and paths forward: A Report on the State of Undocumented Students in California’s Public Universities. UC Collaborative to Promote Immigrant and Student Equity (UC PromISE) and the Undocumented Student Equity Project (USEP).

Enriquez, L. E., Chavarria, K., Rodriguez, V. E., Ayón, C., Ellis, B. D., Hagan, M. J., Jefferies, J., Lara, J., Morales Hernandez, M., Murillo, E. G., Nájera, J. R., Offidani-Bertrand, C., Oropeza Fujimoto, M., Ro, A., Rosales, W. E., Sarabia, H., Soltero López, A. K., Valadez, M., Valdez, Z., & Velarde Pierce, S. (2021). Toward a Nuanced and Contextualized Understanding of Undocumented College Students: Lessons from a California Survey. Journal of Latinos and Education, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2021.1952076

Gonzales, R. G., Ellis, B. D., Rendón-García, S., & Brant, K. (2018). (un)Authorized transitions: Illegality, DACA, and the life course. Research in Human Development, 15(3-4), 345-359. https://doi.org/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15427609.2018.1502543

Ramakrishnan, K., & Colbern, A. (2015). The “California package” of immigrant integration and the evolving nature of state citizenship. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/99w6b4kd

Shapiro, S. L., Carlson, L. E., Astin, J. A., & Freedman, B. (2006). Mechanisms of mindfulness. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62(3), 373-386. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2016.10.011

Sugarman, J. (2015). Neoliberalism and psychological ethics. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 35(2), 103. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0038960

Willen, S. S. (2007). Toward a critical phenomenology of “illegality”: State power, criminalization, and abjectivity among undocumented migrant workers in Tel Aviv, Israel. International Migration, 45(3), 8-38. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2007.00409.x