معرفی
Elena Shih is the Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University. She holds affiliations with the Departments of Sociology, East Asian Studies, and the Watson Institute for International Studies. Her research focuses on human trafficking, anti-trafficking interventions, and their intersections with race, gender, and global capitalism. Shih directs a human trafficking research cluster at Brown’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, co-leads projects on policing Asian massage work and global supply chains, and has published award-winning works such as Manufacturing Freedom (2023) and co-edited White Supremacy, Racism, and the Coloniality of Anti-Trafficking (2022).
Education: PhD in Sociology from UCLA (2015), MA from UCLA (2009), BA in Asian Studies and Women’s Studies from Pomona College (2004). Postdoctoral training includes a Watson Institute fellowship (2014–2015) and ACLS Luce Postdoctoral Fellowship in China Studies (2019–2020).
Research interests span transnational anti-trafficking movements, labor migration, critical humanitarianism, and East/Southeast Asian borderlands. Recent work examines racialized policing of Asian massage workers in Rhode Island and the Belt and Road Initiative’s impact on China-Myanmar border communities.
Key honors include the 2021 Mellon Emerging Faculty Leader Award, 2019 Hazeltine Citation for Excellence in Teaching, and Swearer Center Award for Community Engaged Research (2020). She serves on editorial boards for Anti-Trafficking Review and openDemocracy’s Beyond Trafficking and Slavery.
Teaching includes courses on human trafficking, transnational Asian American Studies, and ethnographic methods. Grants include British Academy funding (2017–2018) and Ford Foundation support (2013–2014).
