University Of Texas Sociologist Secures Prestigious Carnegie Fellowship

AUSTIN, TX -- Growing communities of gun owners are having an impact on democracy -- re-shaping and altering its ideals -- according to research at the University of Texas-Austin that is now recipient of the prestigious 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.

UT sociologist Harel Shapira has been examing the role communities of gun owners have had in reshaping democracy as part of his ongoing ethnographic research. On Tuesday, university officials announced Shapira's work now has been recognized on a national level given the fellowship.

Shapira is one of only 33 scholars nationwide to receive the Carnegie fellowship, which comes with a substantive honorarium. Each year, the Carnegie Corporation of New York awards fellows with up to $200,000 for scholarly research and writing "...aimed at addressing some of the world's most urgent challenges to democracy and international order," university officials wrote.

Shapira, an assistant professor of sociology, was awarded the fellowship for his research proposal titled "The right to kill: Guns, justifiable homicide and the future of American Democracy."

“It’s a tremendous honor," Shapira said in a statement. "The most valuable thing you can give a researcher is time to do research and write. It provides me with a sense that people care about this topic and that people want me to do this kind of research.”

Shapiria's research will culminate in a book focusing on guns and gun ownership. The treatise will explore the ideas, lifestyles and experiences of people in gun-owning communities, university officials explained. Shapira began his research in gun schools, which he regards as educational entities that socialize people in gun culture, they added.

What drives people to join gun-owning communities? What does this mean for democracy?

These are among the questions Shapira's work seeks to answer. Those communities not only shape and transform individuals drawn to gun culture, but to society at large, offials said.

“We are seeing individuals taking on the roles of government when it comes to self-defense and issues of enforcement of the law,” Shapira said. “What might this mean for democracy and democratic institutions? What does an armed society hold for the future of America’s democracy?”

This year’s Carnegie Fellows were selected by a distinguished panel of 16 jurors, including heads of the country’s premier scholarly institutions and presidents of leading universities and foundations, from hundreds of nominations made by leaders from universities, think tanks, publishers and nonprofit organizations nationwide, UT-Austin officials said. Awards totaled $6.6 million.