Dutkiewicz, who is writing a dissertation at the New School on the political economy of hog farming in the contemporary United States, is currently a fellow at UCSB's International Center for the Humanities and Social Change. He argues that the interplay between financial markets and large-scale hog farming generates pressure on producers and processors to engage in commodity markets, hedge risks via futures, and take out ever-larger loans to finance their operations, thus giving increasing power over meat production to banks and investors far removed from the agricultural world.