Dilara Yarbrough

Dilara Yarbrough

Associate Professor
Faculty Advisor
Phone: (415) 338-1077
Email: dilara@sfsu.edu
Location: HSS 335

Dr. Dilara Yarbrough is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Studies at San Francisco State University. She has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, San Diego. Her research analyzes racialization and gendering through carceral and social service institutions and examines radical harm reduction and grassroots organizing as transformative approaches to social provision for people deprived of housing. Her writing has been published in academic journals including Punishment and Society, the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography and Social Problems. She has also coauthored policy reports in collaboration with San Francisco housing and gender justice organizations. Her collaborative projects have won awards from the Sociological Initiatives Foundation, the Society for the Study of Social Problems and the University of California Center for Human Rights. Dr. Yarbrough’s first book, Abolitionist Care, details how poverty relief services provided by and for sex workers and transgender women of color decouple social provision from punishment and explores ways to replace policing with provision of housing and care at a broader institutional scale.

Website(s): https://scholars.org/scholar/dilara-yarbrough 

 

Dr. Yarbrough loves supporting students to achieve their dreams. Her classes emphasize building skills in creative problem solving, critical analysis, and academic writing.

Dr. Yarbrough's work centers the analyses of people affected by state violence and supports social movements for racial, gender and economic justice. Her favorite part of research is listening, and documenting the stories that allow us to collectively imagine a better future.  Her research interests in the areas of poverty and social policy grew out of her past experience as a homeless service provider in the Bay Area. Supporting people to meet their survival needs in a context of scarcity made her want to learn more about the political and economic systems that produce oppression, and how to fight back.