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Bio
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Click here to view Nafisa Tanjeem’s personal website.
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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.
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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. She also worked as a 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 contributes to many local and international platforms, such as Common Dreams, Jamhoor, the Daily Star, New Age, Prothom Alo, Thotkata, and Bama.
Research, Teaching, and Community Engagement
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Tanjeem, Nafisa. Can Workers of the World Unite? A Transnational Feminist Ethnography of Labor Organizing Across the Apparel Supply Chain (In progress).
This book project 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 in 2020. It 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, global, physical, and virtual organizing spaces. Drawing on seven-year-long physical and digital ethnographic observations and interviews, this project specifically investigates what it means for grassroots labor organizers in the Global South, who are often restricted by national borders and neoliberal socio-economic-political forces, to engage in transnational solidarity building.
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Tanjeem, Nafisa, and Michael Illuzzi. 2022. “Decolonizing Or Doing the Best With What We Have? Feminist University-Community Engagement Outside WGSS Programs.” Engaged Scholar Journal: Community-Engaged Research, Teaching, and Learning 8 (2): 110–19.
Illuzzi, Michael J., and Nafisa Tanjeem. “Pandemic Pandemonium: Can There Be a Feminist Pedagogy within e-Learning Industrial Complex?” (Under review)
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Tanjeem, Nafisa, and Rawshan E. Fatima. 2023. “The 2018 Road Safety Protest in Bangladesh: How a Student Crowd Challenged (or Could Not Challenge) the Repressive State.” In Young People Shaping Democratic Politics: Interrogating Inclusion, Mobilising Education, edited by Ian Rivers and C. Laura Lovin, 55–81. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2022. “Political-Social Movements: Unions and Workers Movements: South Asia.” In Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (Supplement XXIII), edited by Joseph Suad. Leiden and Boston: BRILL.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2021. “The Labor of Fashion, Transnational Organizing, and the Global COVID-19 Pandemic.” In The Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies, edited by Eugenia Paulicelli, Elizabeth Wissinger, and Veronica Manlow, 259–68. Oxon and New York: Routledge.
Rodgers, Yana, and Nafisa Tanjeem. 2021. “The Roles of Women.” In Understanding Contemporary Asia Pacific (Second Edition), edited by Katherine Palmer Kaup, 353-384. Bounder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Tanjeem, Nafisa and Aditi Sabur. 2018. “Bangladesh: The Institutionalization of Women and Gender Studies in Higher Education.” In Education in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Islands, edited by Debotri Dhar and Hema Letchamanan, 29-46. London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2016. “Social Media and Conforming Voluntarism in the Neoliberal Era: The Case of Rana Plaza Collapse in Savar, Bangladesh.” In Revealing Gender Inequalities and Perceptions in South Asian Countries through Discourse Analysis, edited by Nazmunnessa Mahtab, Sara Parker, Farah Kabir, Tania Haque, Aditi Sabur and Abu Saleh Mohammad Sowad, 57-79. USA: Information Science Reference (IGI Global).
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2012. “The Making of a “Home”: Exploring the Space of Bangladeshi Diasporic Restaurants in Toronto.” In Strangers in New Homelands: The Social Deconstruction and Reconstruction of “Home” among Immigrants in the Diaspora, edited by Michael Baffoe, Maria Cheung, Lewis Asimeng-Boahene and Buster Ogbuagu, 78-90. UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Tanjeem, Nafisa and Ishrat Khan. 2010. Impact of Hegemonic Masculinity at Workplace: An Analysis of Challenges Faced by Middle-Class Working Women in Bangladesh. Dhaka: University of Dhaka, Department of Women and Gender Studies – Working Paper Series.
Under Review
Rodgers, Yana van der, Nafisa Tanjeem, and Nidhiya Menon. “The Agricultural Sector and Women’s Work in Asia.” In Spatial Spillovers: Viewpoints from Asia, edited by Amitrajeet Batabyal, Yoshiro Higano and Peter Nijkamp. Germany: Springer Nature.
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Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2022. “Testing Transnational Labour Solidarity in the Laboratory of Bangladesh.” Jamhoor, no. 7 (August).
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Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “Review of Anu Muhammad’s ‘Development Re-Examined: The Construction and Consequences of Neoliberal Bangladesh.’” Journal of Bangladesh Studies 25 (1): 48–50.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “An Empire of Touch: Women’s Political Labor and the Fabrication of East Bengal.” South Asian Review, July, 1–4.
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Tanjeem, Nafisa. “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words.” In Eye on the Ball, edited by Yousuf Rezaur Rahman. USA: Waibee LLC.
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Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2024. “Lessons from Palestinian Feminist Organising.” New Age, March 8, 2024.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “Feminism and Digital Security Act.” New Age. September 7, 2023.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “Worker Wage Movement Is a Feminist Issue.” New Age. August 11, 2023.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “The Untold Story of an Unfinished Journey to Motherhood.” The Daily Star. May 14, 2023.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “Our Struggle for Freedom Is Not Done Yet.” The Daily Star. March 28, 2023.
Tanjeem, Nafisa, and Muktasree Chakma. 2023. “Coke Studio Bangla’s ‘Nahubo’: A Song That Exposed Our Fear of the Hybrid.” The Daily Star. March 23, 2023.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “International Women’s Day: On Corporatised, NGOised, and Lifestyle Celebration in Bangladesh.” New Age, March 7, 2023.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “Coke Studio’s Murir Tin: Testament to Working Class (Men’s) Struggles.” The Daily Star, February 27, 2023.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2022. “The Case for a More Equitable Wage Structure.” New Age. October 13, 2022.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2022. “Coke Studio Bangla’s ‘Prarthona’: Caught between Subversion and Co-Option?” The Daily Star. April 12, 2022.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2021. “Covid-19, Digital Activism and Digital Surveillance.” New Age. October 15, 2021.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2021. “The Impossibility of an ‘Informed Choice’: The Covid-19 Vaccine and Pregnant Women.” Common Dreams. April 8, 2021.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2021. “Garment Labour Organising: NGOisation of Labour Movement.” New Age, March 26, 2021.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “16 Days of Activism and Our Obsession with “Commonsense” Violence.” The Daily Star. November 28, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “US Presidential Election: Bangladeshi Immigrants and the Discontents of Normal.” New Age. November 17, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “Black Lives Matters: What Can Justice Activists Learn?” New Age. October 15, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “Beyond the Question of Choice, Motherhood, and Burqa.” The Daily Star. September 17, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa, and Michael J. Illuzzi. 2020. “How COVID-19 Is Normalizing an eLearning-Industrial-Complex in US Higher Education.” Common Dreams. August 7, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “Eclipsed Race and Class? Calling AOC a ‘B*tch’ Is Not Just About Sexism.” Common Dreams. July 26, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “Despite Trump Reversal on Visas, Struggles of International Students Haven’t Ended.” Common Dreams. July 16, 2020.
Ahmed, Syed Ishtiaque, Nafisa Tanjeem, Ayesha Sania, and Md Ruhul Amin. “COVID-19 and the Economisation of Life in Bangladesh.” The Daily Star, May 10, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “From Rana Plaza to COVID-19 Pandemic: Spotlights of Transnational Labour Organising.” New Age, May 5, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “Appropriation of Survival of Garment Workers.” New Age, April 14, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2017. “Thinking beyond Accord and Alliance.” The Daily Star, April 21, 2017.
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Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “কোক স্টুডিও বাংলা: প্রান্তিক প্রতিনিধিত্বের বিপ্লব? [Coke Studio Bangla: A Revolution of Minoritized Representation?].” Deutsche Welle (DW). June 16, 2023.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “প্রসঙ্গঃ মাতৃত্ব, মিসক্যারেজ এবং আমাদের কিছু হিপোক্রেসি [Topic: Motherhood, Miscarriage, and Some of Our Hypocrisies].” ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata]. May 15, 2023.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2022. “একাত্তর টিভি টকশোতে বৈজ্ঞানিক গবেষণা: রাষ্ট্র, কর্পোরেশান আর মিডিয়ার মধুর সম্পর্কের কথা ভুলে গেলে চলবে? [Scientific Research on Ekattor TV: Should We Ignore the Intimate Relationship between the State, Corporations, and the Media?]” ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata]. November 6, 2022.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2022. “নিরাপদ সড়ক আন্দোলন ও শিক্ষার্থী আন্দোলনের ভবিষ্যত [Road Safety Protest and the Future of Student Movement].” Prothom Alo. August 7, 2022.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2022. “বাংলাদেশের গার্মেন্ট শ্রম সংগঠনের অর্থনৈতিক ও লৈঙ্গিক ইতিহাস এবং রাজনীতি – প্রথম পর্ব [The Economic and Sexual History and Politics of Garment Labor Organizing in Bangladesh] – Part I.” Bama, March 2, 2022.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “করোনা, মধ্যবিত্ত সমাজ আর আমাদের ‘কাজের মেয়ে’রা [Coronavirus, the middle class, and our domestic workers].” ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata]. October 25, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “ব্যক্তিস্বাধীনতা, মাতৃত্ব আর বোরকার পরের প্রশ্ন [Questions beyond Choice, Motherhood, and Borkha].” The Daily Star Bangla. September 19, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “রানা প্লাজা থেকে করোনাকালঃ আন্তর্জাতিক শ্রম আন্দোলনের স্পটলাইট যা দেখেনি [ Rana Plaza to COVID-19: What the Spotlight of Transnational Labor Movement Missed].” ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata], May 8, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “করোনা ভাইরাস, দুর্যোগকালীন পুঁজিবাদ এবং আমাদের গার্মেন্ট শ্রমিক [Coronavirus, Disaster Capitalism, and Our Garment Workers].” ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata], April 13, 2020.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2015. “নারীবাদ প্রশ্ন সম্পর্কে নাফিসা [Nafisa on the Question of Feminism].” ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata], September 29, 2015.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2015. “হার্কিন্স বিল থেকে অ্যাকর্ড ও অ্যালায়েন্সঃ কর্পোরেটকেন্দ্রিক শ্রম আন্দোলনের সীমাবদ্ধতা [From Harkin’s Bill to Accord and Alliance: Limitations of Corporation-Centric Labor Movements].” ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata], June 10, 2015.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2015. “অ্যালায়েন্স ফর বাংলাদেশ ওয়ার্কার্স সেফটি: পোশাক শিল্পে কর্পোরেট গভর্নেন্সের নতুন সংযোজন [Alliance for Bangladesh Workers Safety: A New Addition to Corporate Governance in the Garment Industry].” ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata], May 15, 2015.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2015. “অ্যাকর্ড কোন ম্যাজিক বুলেট নয়: বাংলাদেশের পোশাক শিল্পের উন্নয়নে সাম্প্রতিক কর্পোরেট কোড [Accord Is Not a Magic Bullet: Recent Corporate Codes for Improvement of the Garment Industry in Bangladesh].” ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata], May 9, 2015.
Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2015. “পোশাক শিল্পে শিশুশ্রম নিরসনের রাজনীতি; নব্বইয়ের দশকের কর্পোরেটকেন্দ্রিক শ্রম অধিকার উদ্যোগ [The Politics of Ending Child Labor in the Garment Industry: The Corporation-Centric Labor Rights Organizing in the 1990s].” ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata], April 30, 2015.
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- Introduction to Gender, Race, Sexuality (face-to-face, hybrid, and online)
- Introduction to Liberal Studies
- Introduction to Feminist Theories
- Politicizing Sex, Gender, and Race: Transnational Perspectives
- Feminist Theory and Writings: Selected Readings from the Early to Contemporary Periods
- Feminist Debates and Discourses
- Gender and Development
- Gender and Globalization
- Gender and Consumption
- Doing Good or Looking Good: Decolonizing Community Engagement (face-to-face, hybrid, and online)
- Transnational Digital Activism (face-to-face and online)
- Social Media and Social Movements (online)
- Global Issues and Challenges (face-to-face, hybrid, and online)
- Research Methods
- Internship and Seminar: The Non-profit Industrial Complex and Social Justice Organizing (face-to-face, hybrid, and online)
- Senior Capstone Seminar: Global Social Change (face-to-face, hybrid, and online)
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- Introduction to Women and Gender Studies
- Immigrant States – Jersey’s Global Routes
- War – Critical Perspectives
- Impacts of Economic Inequality on Women’s Health (Online)
- Women’s Global Health Movements (Online)
- Health Consequences of Global Pharmaceutical Industry (Online)