Shelley Feldman

Retired Professor

Overview

Broadly, Professor Feldman's research goals are to better understand processes of global social change, especially as these processes are expressed in particular social and spatial contexts and differently, among diverse social constituencies. She engages this approach to explore a number of parallel but distinct research interests. First, she explores questions of social restructuring, gender relations, and development with a regional focus in South Asia, particularly in Bangladesh where she contribute to discussions of rural and agrarian change, land grabbing, as well as women`s labor, shame and honor, and relations of social reproduction. The second area of her research focus examines the ways in which feminist theorizing recasts debates on state formation, social regulation, social reproduction, displacement, and militarism with a focus on both the U.S. and South Asia. A third is comparative in design and concerns precarious life and forms of social sustenance by which she means both shifts in working conditions, but also changes in aspirations, access, relations of belonging, and valuations of human life.

Research Focus