I’m Daniel Greene. I study the futures of work as an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies.
My first book, The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope, was published by MIT Press. Drawing on years of fieldwork in Washington, DC’s schools, libraries, and startups, it explores how the problem of poverty became a problem of technology and the skills to use it, how ‘learn to code’ became the default response to the broken labor markets of the twenty-first century. The Promise of Access received the McGannon Book Award for the best book published in 2021 concerning media policy, activism, and social justice.
I’m also interested in surveillance and privacy, which I’ve explored in other research. I bring together my interests in labor, surveillance, and organizational change in my next major project, Selective: The Fight over ‘Fit’ in Organizational Life, which tells the story of the different artifacts–performance reviews, job applications, pink slips–that large organizations use to to define who does or does not belong, and how workers resist these measures.
My work touches the fields of information studies, technology studies, the sociology of work, organization studies, and critical theory. You can find out more about my research and teaching (the best part of my job) above. I’m not recruiting graduate students right now but I’m always happy to talk.
My CV is here. Find me on Twitter (less) at greene_dm or Bluesky (more) at dmgreene, or via email at dgreene1 at umd dot edu.
