Country of Residence
Discipline(s)
Institution
Worcester State University
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
486 Chandler St, Worcester, MA 01602
Research Interests
Transnational, postcolonial, and decolonial feminisms; critical race theory; globalization and feminist politics; critical community engagement; critical university studies; transnational social justice movements with a specific focus on Bangladesh and the United States.
Topics to speak on:
Feminisms, social movements, labor rights, globalization
Biography
Nafisa Tanjeem (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Worcester State University in Massachusetts, United States.
Nafisa’s research and teaching interests include transnational, postcolonial, and decolonial feminisms; critical race theory; globalization and feminist politics; critical community engagement; nonprofit industrial complex; critical university studies; and transnational social justice movements with a specific focus on the United States and South Asia. Before joining Worcester State University, Nafisa taught at Lesley University, Rutgers University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Dhaka.
Nafisa is currently working on finishing her book manuscript that examines transnational labor activism and activist discourses developed in relation to the deadliest garment industrial disaster in human history, the 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza – a factory building housing five garment factories in Savar, Bangladesh, and continued until the global COVID-19 pandemic. The project examines the gendered, racialized, classed, and (trans)national trajectory of labor organizing around the Accord, the Alliance, and the COVID-19 pandemic proposing diverging concepts of safety, security, and labor rights, and the challenges that arise when these concepts clash in various local and global, physical and virtual organizing spaces.
Nafisa has been actively involved in community organizing and social justice activism. She is an organizer of the Meye (“Woman” in Bangla) network, which is a voluntary, grassroots, and organic network advocating for women’s solidarity and leadership in Bangladesh. In the past, she was a co-chief steward of the core faculty union of Lesley University, which was a part of SEIU Local 509. She organized with the Rutgers University chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) on the garment worker solidarity campaign in New Jersey, the United States. She also worked as Community Organizer and Events Coordinator with the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA) on poverty reduction, gender equity, and youth engagement among South Asian immigrant communities in Toronto, Canada. Nafisa recognizes the value of public scholarship and is a contributor to many American and international platforms, such as Common Dreams, the Daily Star, New Age, Thotkata, and Bama.
Nafisa has a Ph.D. in Women’s and Gender Studies from Rutgers University, an M.A. in Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Toronto, and a B.A. in Women and Gender Studies from the University of Dhaka.