His 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: Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity in Chicago, 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. Shabazz’s scholarship has appeared in Souls, The Spatial-Justice Journal, ACME, Gender, Place & Culture, and Occasions and he has also published several book chapters and book reviews.