BU Sociology

BIO AND RESEARCH
My teaching and research interests are in the areas of family, race and ethnicity, gender and globalization with a focus on South Asia as well as the Asian American experience. I am currently engaged in a study of the Bangladesh diaspora, specifically of Bangladesh-origin communities in the U.S. and Britain as well as of labor migration streams to the Persian Gulf states and to Malaysia. I explore the question of how migrants negotiate Muslim religious identity as well as Bangladesh national identity within these diverse contexts. I also examine the consequences of these negotiations for the emerging contests of Islamization in Bangladesh.

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

2009. “Marry into a Good Family: Transnational Reproduction and Intergenerational Relations in Bangladeshi American Families”. In Across Generations: Immigrant Families in America ed. Nancy Foner. New York University Press.

2009. With Sonali Jain. “Cultural Impacts of Sisimpur, Sesame Street in Bangladesh: Views of Caregivers of Children in Rural Bangladesh”. Journal of Comparative Family Studies Vol. 40 (1)

2008. “Muslim Encounters in the Global Economy: Identity developments of labor migrants from Bangladesh to the Middle East ”. Ethnicities Vol. 8, no.4: 539-556.

2008. “The New Islam and Bangladeshi Youth in Britain and the U.S.” Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 31, no.2: 243-266.

2007. Co-edited volume: Globalization and the Family eds. N. Kibria and S. Kukreja. Ashwin-Anoka Press, Serial Publications: New Delhi, India. (Reprint of Special Issue on Globalization and the Family of the International Journal of Sociology of the Family). ISBN: 978-81-904750-1-3

2005. “South Asian Americans” In Asian Americans: Contemporary Trends and Issues ed. Pyong Gap Min. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

2004. “Returning International Labor Migrants from Bangladesh: The Experience and Effects of Deportation”. Working Paper #28, Mellon-MIT Inter-University Program on NGOs and Forced Migration.

2002. Becoming Asian American: Identities of Second Generation Chinese and Korean Americans. Johns Hopkins University Press.

2000. Race, ethnic options and ethnic binds. Sociological Perspectives 43:77-95.

1997. The construction of "Asian American": reflections on intermarriage and ethnic identity among second generation Chinese and Korean Americans. Ethnic and Racial Studies 20:523-544.

1995. Culture, class and income control in the lives of women garment workers in Bangladesh. Gender & Society 9:289-309.

1993. Family Tightrope: the Changing Lives of Vietnamese Americans. Princeton University Press.