Rashad Shabazz's academic expertise brings together human geography, Black cultural studies, gender studies, and critical prison studies. His research explores how race, sexuality and gender are informed by geography. His most recent work, "Spatializing Blackness," (University of Illinois Press, 2015) examines how carceral power within the geographies of Black Chicagoans shaped urban planning, housing policy, policing practices, gang formation, high incarceration rates, masculinity and health.

Professor Shabazz's scholarship has appeared in Souls, The Spatial-Justice Journal, ACME, Gender, Place and Culture and Occasions and he has also published several book chapters and book reviews.  He is currently working on two projects: the first examines how Black people use public spaces to negotiate and perform race, gender and sexual identity as well as to express political or cultural identity. The second project uncovers the role Black musicians in Minneapolis played in giving rise to "the Minneapolis sound."