Smith's work focuses on gendered anti-Black state violence and Black communities' responses to it in Brazil and the Americas. She is particularly interested in the performative aspects of anti-Black violence, transnational Black liberation struggles and global racial formation. She also researches Black women’s experiences with state violence, anti-Black policing in the Americas, death squads, the paradoxical relationship between Black people and the nation-state in the Americas, and violence and racial representation.