Zoë West

Zoë West, PhD, is Senior Researcher, Worker Rights and Equity (Senior Extension Associate). For over a decade, Zoë’s research and education work has centered on the low-wage economy, seeking to uplift creative strategies for building worker power and advancing racial, gender and migration justice. Her research relies on qualitative and participatory research methods that amplify workers’ lived experiences and explore emerging models of organizing and collective representation. Recent mixed methods research projects include an evaluation of a peer education model for domestic workers seeking to raise industry standards; research mapping labor conditions for workers in New York State’s nail salon industry; and a project documenting experiences of workplace sexual violence in the California janitorial industry and a survivor- and worker-led approach to confronting the issue.

Zoë has more than a decade of experience delivering political education and leadership development training programs for worker and social justice organizations, and for over five years has taught courses on labor, immigration and oral history at Columbia University and the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies at SUNY Empire State College. She edited and compiled the oral history collection Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives from Survivors of Burma’s Military Regime (McSweeney’s, 2011; NDSP Books, 2016). Alongside her education and research work, Zoë has also been active in organizing as a union member and delegate, and with worker centers and other social justice groups. Zoë has a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford.