My experience is in researching and teaching politics (the state, the welfare state, social movements, elites), political economy, US and state tax policy, immigration and immigration policy, inequality, social mobility, health care policy, the Fair Trade movement, and environmental justice (so far focusing on nuclear waste siting).
I often approach these topics with comparative (cross-national and historical) research, and my primary geographic specialty areas are the U.S. and Sweden, and secondarily the EU, Latin America, and Canada. As well, I might contribute to entries on some social science research methods (interview, participant-observation, quantitative, archival), and Marxist and socialist-feminist theory. I have an old English lit and editing background, so sometimes I will copyedit. I have more to learn about minor editing protocols in Wikipedia.
I really appreciate the public-spiritedness of Wikipedia, and my goals here are to learn how to edit and use Wikipedia with more technical proficiency, and, especially because my research tends to involve controversial topics, to learn how to avoid unproductive exchanges without submitting to bullying--a good life skill in general.
I was born and raised in the U.S., and in my adult life have lived in various parts of the U.S., Canada, and Sweden. I have traveled fairly extensively, and I can read a few European languages besides English: Swedish, Spanish, some French and German.
Blanche Poubelle is just my nom de guerre. I've always relied on the kindness of Swedes, the French, lapsed Catholics, and Canadians.