Kylie Gaines

Kylie Gaines is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, specializing in political theory, Black political thought, and identity politics. Her dissertation examines contemporary articulations of Black nationalism in the Black Lives Matter era, with particular attention to how these political projects are produced and circulated within digital media environments and shaped through cultural expression and activist practice. Her work analyzes how nationalist frameworks structure forms of Black political identification and participation in contemporary U.S. politics. Her research has been published in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics and the London School of Economics US Politics and Policy Blog.

Kylie also serves as a Qualitative Research Lead at the Blum Center, where she studies structural constraints on the development of University of California student housing and its implications for student well-being.

Introduction to Political Theory

Asian American Politics

U.S. Minority Politics