Sparse prose (a sociology of love)

Pager wrote in sparse prose and fought with co-authors who wanted to bog down papers with jargon and technical details. “Devah had this rare ability,” says the Princeton sociologist Mitchell Duneier, “to both do the most rigorous social science, and then to translate those findings so that they would be discussed by people of different political persuasions.”

It was this kind of grounding that led Pager’s work to have such a profound impact on public policy … It was research compelled by moral commitments — racism is evil, poverty steals our gifts — and Pager’s ability to see the best in us, including those among us who have been convicted and caged. Hers was a sociology in the service of the dispossessed, a sociology of love.

Devah Pager: Her Work As A Sociologist Highlighted Racial Injustice In The United States, by Matthew Desmond, New York Times Magazine, 27 December 2018