Jennifer Fish Chair of the Department of Women’s Studies Old Dominion University

Jennifer N. Fish is Chair of the Department of Women’s Studies at Old Dominion University. Her research focuses on women’s labor and migration in the informal economy, with an emphasis on societies in post-conflict transitions and transnational activism. Over the past fifteen years, she has worked with the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union on a series of labor legislation policies, as well as organization building at the national level.  Her focus on domestic worker policy change in South Africa’s new democracy informs her first two book publications: Domestic Democracy: At Home in South Africa (Routledge, 2006) and the co-edited collection Women’s Activism in South Africa: Working Across Divides (University of KwaZulu Natal, 2009), along with numerous articles and book chapters.  In 2010, Dr. Fish joined the International Domestic Workers Network to take part in the ILO negotiations on the first Domestic Workers Convention.  Based upon five years of scholar-activist research, she is currently completing an ethnographic book on domestic workers’ global organizing around this ILO policy process.   Her scholar-activist research has supported a range of international organizations and universities, including the United Nations University, the International Labour Organization, and a series of refugee and migrant organizations.  Dr. Fish is a member of the Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) policy research organization at Harvard University and a Research Associate at the Social Law Project at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town.  Her research includes photographic documentation of human rights and labor issues, including the production of a film on the ILO policy victory for domestic workers.

Dr. Jennifer Fish Portraits
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