A person with glasses and curly hair smiles, wearing a light purple blouse. They stand outdoors in a desert landscape with dry shrubs and distant hills.
Nafisa Nipun Tanjeem
Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies
(508) 929-8642 ntanjeem@worcester.edu
Office Location
Sullivan-143B
Office Hours:
Please email for this information.
Areas of Expertise

Bio

Nafisa Nipun Tanjeem (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at ĢƵ in Massachusetts, United States.
  • to view Nafisa Tanjeem’s personal website.

  • 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 ĢƵ, Nafisa taught at Lesley University, Rutgers University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Dhaka.

  • Nafisa has been actively involved in community organizing and social justice activism. She is an organizer of the (“Woman” in Bangla) network and – both of whom are voluntary, grassroots, and organic networks advocating for feminist solidarity and organizing 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 in engaging and circulating academic research with the community. Her work has been published on many local and international platforms, such as ,,,,,, and.

Education
2017
Rutgers University
Women's and Gender Studies
Ph.D.
2009
University of Toronto
Women's and Gender Studies
M.A.
2008
University of Dhaka
Women and Gender Studies
B.S.S.

Research, Teaching, and Community Engagement

  • 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.

  • Tanjeem, Nafisa Nipun, and Michael J. Illuzzi. n.d. “Can There Be a Feminist Pedagogy within E-Learning Industrial Complex?”.” Radical Teacher, no. 132 (Forthcoming).

    Tanjeem, Nafisa, and Michael Illuzzi. 2022. “.” Engaged Scholar Journal: Community-Engaged Research, Teaching, and Learning 8 (2): 110–19.

  • Rodgers, Yana van der Meulen, Nafisa Tanjeem, and Nidhiya Menon. 2024. “The Agricultural Sector and Women’s Work in Asia.” In Spatial Spillovers: Viewpoints from Asia, edited by Amitrajeet Batabyal, Yoshiro Higano, and Peter Nijkamp. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa, and Rawshan E. Fatima. 2023. “.” 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. “.” In Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (Supplement XXIII), edited by Joseph Suad. Leiden and Boston: BRILL.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa.2021. “.” InThe Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies, edited by Eugenia Paulicelli, Elizabeth Wissinger, and Veronica Manlow, 259–68. Oxon and New York: Routledge.

    Rodgers, Yana, andNafisa Tanjeem. 2021. “.” In , edited by Katherine Palmer Kaup, 353-384. Bounder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

    Tanjeem, Nafisaand Aditi Sabur. 2018. “.” InEducation 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. “.” InRevealing 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.” InStrangers 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, Nafisaand 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.

  • Tanjeem, Nafisa.2022. “.”Jamhoor, no. 7 (August).

  • Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “Review of Anu Muhammad’s ‘Development Re-Examined: The Construction and Consequences of Neoliberal Bangladesh.’ĝ 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.

  • Tanjeem, Nafisa. “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words.” In Eye on the Ball, edited by Yousuf Rezaur Rahman. USA: Waibee LLC.

  • Tanjeem, Nafisa Nipun. 2025. “.” Common Dreams. March 10, 2025.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa Nipun. 2024. “ The New Age. October 10, 2024.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa Nipun. 2024. “,” The Daily Star. October 5, 2024.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa Nipun. 2024. “.” The Daily Star. May 18, 2024.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2024. “.” New Age, March 8, 2024.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “.” New Age. September 7, 2023.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “.” New Age. August 11, 2023.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “.” The Daily Star. May 14, 2023.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “.” The Daily Star. March 28, 2023.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa, and Muktasree Chakma. 2023. “.” The Daily Star. March 23, 2023.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “.” New Age, March 7, 2023.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “.” The Daily Star, February 27, 2023.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2022. “.” New Age. October 13, 2022.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2022.The Daily Star. April 12, 2022.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2021. “.”New Age. October 15, 2021.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2021. “.”Common Dreams. April 8, 2021.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa.2021. “.”New Age, March 26, 2021.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “.”The Daily Star. November 28, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “.”New Age. November 17, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “”New Age. October 15, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “.”The Daily Star. September 17, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa, and Michael J. Illuzzi. 2020. “.”Common Dreams. August 7, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “.”Common Dreams. July 26, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “.”Common Dreams. July 16, 2020.

    Ahmed, Syed Ishtiaque,Nafisa Tanjeem, Ayesha Sania, and Md Ruhul Amin. “.”The Daily Star, May 10, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “.”New Age, May 5, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “.”New Age, April 14, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2017. “.”The Daily Star, April 21, 2017.

  • Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “ [Coke Studio Bangla: A Revolution of Minoritized Representation?].” Deutsche Welle (DW). June 16, 2023.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2023. “ [Topic: Motherhood, Miscarriage, and Some of Our Hypocrisies].” ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata]. May 15, 2023.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2022. “? [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. “[Road Safety Protest and the Future of Student Movement].”Prothom Alo. August 7, 2022.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa.2022. “[The Economic and Sexual History and Politics of Garment Labor Organizing in Bangladesh] – Part I.”Bama, March 2, 2022.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “[Coronavirus, the middle class, and our domestic workers].”ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata].October 25, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “[Questions beyond Choice, Motherhood, and Borkha].”The Daily Star Bangla. September 19, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “[ Rana Plaza to COVID-19: What the Spotlight of Transnational Labor Movement Missed].”ঠোঁটকাটা [Thotkata], May 8, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2020. “[Coronavirus, Disaster Capitalism, and Our Garment Workers].”ঠোঁটকাটা[Thotkata], April 13, 2020.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2015. “[Nafisa on the Question of Feminism].”ঠোঁটকাটা[Thotkata], September 29, 2015.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2015. “[From Harkin’s Bill to Accord and Alliance: Limitations of Corporation-Centric Labor Movements].”ঠোঁটকাটা[Thotkata], June 10, 2015.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2015. “[Alliance for Bangladesh Workers Safety: A New Addition to Corporate Governance in the Garment Industry].”ঠোঁটকাটা[Thotkata], May 15, 2015.

    Tanjeem, Nafisa. 2015. “[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. “[The Politics of Ending Child Labor in the Garment Industry: The Corporation-Centric Labor Rights Organizing in the 1990s].”ঠোঁটকাটা[Thotkata], April 30, 2015.

    • 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)
    • 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)