User:Sageee-222/sandbox

= Afshan Jafar =

Career and Accomplishments
Afshan Jafar is a professor of sociology at Connecticut College (Ph.D., UMass-Amherst). Globalization, gender, media, and the body are some of her areas of interest in both her research and teaching. She also discusses academic leadership, the experiences of women and underrepresented minorities in academia, and academic governance.

In addition to being a professor of Professor of Sociology, Chair of the Sociology Department, Acting Chair of the Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectionality Studies Department at Connecticut College, she also is a an author for “''Women's NGOs in Pakistan” (2011),and the co-editor (with Erynn Masi de Casanova) of "Global Beauty, Local Bodies" (2013), "Bodies Without Borders" (2013), “Asking the Right Questions: Teaching about Islam and Globalization”, “The Lasting Impact of a First Impression: An Exercise for the First Day of Class”, and “Engaging Fundamentalism: The Case of Women’s NGOs in Pakistan”. She also has a famous speech one TED talk called, Progress and women's bodies: Afshan Jafar at TEDxConnecticutCollege.'' In "Global Beauty, Local Bodies" (2013), Jafar calls attention to the ways that women's bodies have been manipulated for both physical and aesthetic ends. She discusses the various professions that justify the use of women's bodies. We rapidly learn that these techniques have been used throughout the world in numerous sectors. The use of women's bodies as sex symbols is a theme she underlines. Beyond its global and transnational viewpoint, Global Beauty, Local Bodies' strength and individuality lie in the complexity of the themes that the pieces delve into. In chapter 2, which Jafar highlights, he lists numerous aesthetic labor strategies employed by female sex workers to raise their pay in this business. We quickly discover that women contribute significantly to the cosmetic work in the very competitive and professionalized sex market in Tijuana. Jafar explores the industries in several nations, I've observed. She exposes the realities surrounding these sex enterprises as well as the underlying strategies applied therein to control the female bodies.

In “Engaging Fundamentalism: The Case of Women’s NGOs in Pakistan.” Social Problems, Afshan Jafar explores the challenges that Islamic fundamentalism presents to women's NGO's. According to Jafar, islamic extremism is to blame for the challenges that Pakistani women's nonprofit organizations encounter. She outlines the potential and restrictions of the tactics employed by women NGOs in order to change or structurally improve the situation of Pakistani women before criticizing them. These women may have some influence, but fundamentalism still has authority over them. She says, “ I argue that such formula- tions are unable to capture the context within which NGOs make their decisions. In this arti- cle, by analyzing the case of women’s NGOs in Pakistan, I demonstrate that the actions and agendas of women’s NGOs in Pakistan are largely a response to Islamic fundamentalism. These NGOs have to consider the political and religious sensibilities of the communities that they work within as they develop their agendas and organize their activities. I conclude with a critique of the strategies employed by women’s NGOs and discuss their possibilities and lim- itations for bringing about structural changes in women’s position in Pakistan”(257).

In her book "Women’s NGOs in Pakistan", By drawing on interviews, participant observation, and published materials by and about NGOs, this book analyzes the strategies used by Pakistani women's NGOs to advance women's rights in a traditional - and usually hostile - context. Jafar delves into case studies to further analyze the strategies employed by Pakistani women. Afshan Jafar has asked various questions on the duties of women's NGOs in Pakistan. She makes the strong case that rather than praising or criticizing women's NGOs, it is important to show their historical context, linkages to industry, government, civil society, and more generalized cultural politics.

In “The Lasting Impact of a First Impression: An Exercise for the First Day of Class”, Jafar created an exercise for the first day of class in an introductory sociology course is described in this article. With the exception of the exercise on the first day of class, students in two sections of Introduction to Sociology taught by the same professor and covering the same material were surveyed at the conclusion of the semester regarding the first day. Students' responses in the section that includes the experiment show that they believe the activity is helpful in challenging their preconceptions of the roles of students and professors in college classrooms, helping them think more critically, and helping them remember and apply sociological concepts to their own lives. Additionally, these students express pleasant memories of the first day and the instructor.

In “Asking the Right Questions: Teaching about Islam and Globalization", Jafar was examining how students, in particular, had been taught about the "cultural norms" connected to Islam and Muslims. Within the section “Teaching Globalization and Globalizing Sociology” Jafar argues that any globalization course should challenge the way in which we view the multiplicity of cultures and experiences that exist inside a single country. Jafar conducted an exercise called “Muslim Women are…” She had noted that many of the students said “Muslim women are oppressed, passive, and controlled.” She conducted this to bring awareness to reconsidering the ways in which we examine people and places. She used a survey to distinguish between each response a student gave. She reveals that the survey altered the students' perspectives when it comes to groupings and categories of people.