Deren Onursal, Adam Hobbs & Catherine Wells. 2024. "Violence, What Is It Good For? Waves of Riotous-Violent Protest and Democracy". Democratization 31 (6): 1272–96.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2024.2302544 

“Everyday Mutual Aid as Democratic Practice” at Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory.

“Whose Anger Counts? Affective Injustice and Democratic Legitimacy in the Oresteia” (with Joshua Miller) at Polity.

"The Reciprocity Problem in Solidarity"

"Embodied Democratic Habits in Urban Space"

My dissertation studies mutual aid organizing, the growing practice of neighbors freely providing food, medical supplies, and other necessities to each other, outside government programs and formal nonprofits. I argue this everyday care work is democratic action in its own right, a way that citizens reclaim control over their own lives when institutions fail to protect them. Based on 25+ interviews and a year of observation with organizers, I trace how these acts build what I call asymmetric solidarity: a felt moral commitment to care for others as neighbors, with no expectation of return.

I plan to expand my dissertation into a book that follows mutual aid principles into city hall. Comparing homelessness policy and city council debates in Greensboro, NC and Riverside, CA, I ask what happens when this model of unconditional care collides with official visions of "the homeless" as a population to be managed. The book argues that grassroots practices of care have something to teach democratic institutions about who counts as a full member of the political community.