Mark Fleisher is an ethnographer. He embeds himself in local cultures, and tries to describe people’s daily lives, to understand how human societies adapt to the conditions around them. Now a research professor in Applied Social Sciences at Case Western University, his work has taken him to such exotic places as Mexico, the Netherlands, the highlands of Guatemala and the North End of Champaign, Illinois. The six years Fleisher spend in Champaign is the subject of his latest book, “Living Black: Social Life in an African American Neighborhood,” out now from the University of Wisconsin Press.

Mark spoke with host Brian Standing about his new book.