Matthew Alemu
I am a doctoral candidate in the Department Matthew Alemu completed his B.S. in Accounting at the Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans in 2006. Afterward, he received his MPP from the University of Michigan in 2009. Before returning to U of M in Fall 2012, Matthew worked as a policy analyst at the Government Accountability Office in Washington D.C. Matthew’s research interests span the areas of Race, Culture, Family, and Public Policy. His dissertation research looks at how experiencing an absent father as a youth influences one’s life course. Matthew is also actively engaged in public scholarship on race, and his op-eds have been featured in the Detroit Free Press and Blavity.com. In his spare time, Matthew enjoys spending time with his wife and four-year-old daughter and squeezing in a nerdy documentary when possible.
My dissertation is guided by two primary research objectives. First, my work addresses voids in the way we understand and define a father’s absence. Researchers and policymakers have employed a narrow definition of absence that hinges on the residential status of fathers or temporal accounts of the contact between fathers and their children. These emphases have resulted in an under exploration of interpretations of the meaningfulness of absence by the children who experience this condition. They also foster the assumption that children with non-resident fathers experience such absence in similar ways.
Researchers and policymakers have employed a narrow definition of absence that hinges on the residential status of fathers or temporal accounts of the contact between fathers and their children.
My dissertation provides a detailed typology of absence and illustrates how each type may be perceived by children. It also documents the unique and distinctive consequences of each type. Empirically, I focus on how growing up with an absent father influences how young black men form ideologies related to fatherhood, masculinity and romantic relationships. I do so by drawing from serial interviews with 35 young low-income black men in Southeast Michigan who grew up with some form of an absent father. Ultimately, my dissertation examines voids in the cultural study of marginalized black men. While prior research had acknowledged the prevalence in this group of growing up with an absent father, its focus has been limited to studying how the structural conditions of poverty shape the minds and lives of low-income black men and less do so on the complexities inherent in the perceived impact of that experience.
My dissertation provides a detailed typology of absence and illustrates how each type may be perceived by children.
