I’m Axl—sociologist, legal scholar, and harm reductionist. I study how institutions like prisons, parole boards, and drug treatment systems define and enforce ideas like rehabilitation, danger, and addiction in order to govern people’s lives. I’m especially interested in methadone as a treatment for people dealing with criminalized opioid dependence—how it’s regulated, who gets access, and how treatment often becomes another site of surveillance and control.
Before academia, I worked on boats, as an EMT, and as a construction worker, among other jobs. I’m a formerly incarcerated community college transfer and reentry student. These experiences continue to shape how I move through the world and inform the questions I ask—questions about power, punishment, care, and the meaning of justice. I believe the way we talk about things matters, because it shapes how we think—and that can change the world.
I bring an interdisciplinary lens to my work, combining training in law and sociology. I earned my JD before beginning my PhD in Sociology at UC Davis, and I draw from sociolegal studies, critical drug studies, and abolitionist thought to examine how systems manage—and often mismanage—vulnerability.
Outside of research, I organize, cook, and care for my human and nonhuman family. I’m a board member of the National Coalition to Liberate Methadone, a co-leader of a leadership development group called We Are All Leaders, and a co-founder of the UC Davis chapter of Underground Scholars. I also love animals and plant-based cooking, and I believe joy, community, and dignity are fundamental to liberation.
Axl Kaminski M.A., J.D. 