I am a Professor of Sociology at James Madison University. I specialize in qualitative methods, and my research examines issues pertaining to international migration, labor, community, and leisure. 

My first book, published with the University of Chicago Press, examines the vital role of play and public parks in building social connections in the city. Fútbol in the Park: Immigrants, Soccer, and the Creation of Social Ties is an ethnographic study of working-class Latino immigrant men who regularly gather in a Los Angeles public park to socialize and play soccer. It investigates the social world of the park and, through it, the experience of migration of the men who played there.

I am now completing a second ethnographic project on H-2A agricultural guest workers, tentatively titled El Campo: Temporary Living and Laboring in Virginia. The research is driven by a growing concern with where our food comes from and who produces it, and it sheds light on the social and political implications of temporary agricultural labor on both sides of the US–Mexico border.

I also write on qualitative methods, focusing on how to situate ethnographic analysis wihtin the multifacted, unfolding lives of the people we study.

At JMU, I especially enjoy teaching courses that introduce students to sociological perspectives they can use in their everyday lives, as well as courses that get the "seat of their pants dirty" with actual empirical work. In my Sociology of Immigration course, for example, students contribute to the Immigrant Stories Project.

If you have questions or would like to connect, please email me at trouilda@jmu.edu.