Mehrangiz Najafizadeh

Gender in the Global Context

Comparative Societies

Globalization

Classical and Modern Sociological Theory

Social Change and Development Studies

Comparative Historical Sociology

Third World and Newly Independent States

How do we explain women's "place" in societies that are undergoing major sociopolitical change? 

 Utilizing women’s narratives and oral histories, my research has focused on major sociopolitical change in post-Soviet Azerbaijan and has examined various factors impacting women’s “place” in Azeri society.  These include the emergence of Azeri women’s advocacy organizations (NGOs) and efforts to promote women’s empowerment, the re-emergence of religion and implications for identity, and forced migration and the plight of Azeri women refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).  However, it also is important to examine changes in women’s roles in the social historical context.  Therefore, one element of my current research agenda employs a social historical focus on sociopolitical, cultural, and ideological change related to Azeri women’s “place” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  This archival research is guided by questions such as the following:  How were women’s roles socially constructed in Azeri society in the 1800s and early 1900s?  Which “pivotal events” during this period were crucial for the emergence of dramatic changes in the social construction of Azeri women’s roles?  Who were the “social entrepreneurs” who were instrumental in forging new conceptions of women’s “place” and in promoting new rights for women in early 20th century Azeri society?