Sackett’s research focus on refugees and the institutional barriers and opportunities they face in accessing rights and resources. The majority of the world’s refugees live in the Global South, and her current book project, Dreams Derailed, reveals how long-term displacement disrupts refugees’ economic livelihoods in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. Based on over 14 months of ethnographic observation, this book project book examines the strategies of refugee families and communities as they seek to rebuild, as well as the barriers they face.

She is also first author of a co-authored book (with Annette Lareau) We Thought It Would Be Heaven: Refugees in an Unequal America with the University of California Press. Fleeing war and violence, many refugees dream that moving to the United States will be like going to Heaven. Instead, they enter a deeply unequal American society, often at the bottom. Based on extensive ethnographic observations and interviews with Congolese refugee families and aid workers and volunteers, We Thought It Would Be Heaven examines the obstacles refugees face across an array of American institutions—from schools to welfare offices. Each institution presents hurdles that threaten to become barriers to refugees’ pathways to upward mobility.

Refugee Families
Introduction to Sociology