I am currently a PhD candidate in Sociology, with a concentration in political economy.

My key research questions center around the environmental, economic, social, and political crises associated with capitalist and neoliberal economic modernization as it intersects with nations across the global divide. I analyze how rising inequality, environmental degradation, and increasing fragility of the economic system impact the stability of institutions and disproportionately impact people lacking political power.

My dissertation focuses on Moon mining as a response to environmental degradation, constrained resources from the infinite growth imperative, and a quest to maintain hegemonic power in the global political economy. I emphasize the need for global democratic governance and greater inclusiveness for all people to have a voice in the fate of the Moon. My project compares key legal arguments of active interest groups in relation to the Moon towards this goal.

Research

In the spring of 2018, I was awarded the Ingrid H. Rima Scholarship from the Association for Social Economics (ASE) for my paper titled: "Using Polanyi’s The Great Transformation to Understand Crises: Beyond the Regulation School and Social Structures of Accumulation Perspectives". The paper constructs a theoretical framework to approach the crises inherent in the liberalization and deregulation of the economy using Polanyi's concepts of fictitious commodities, asserting that the deregulation of land, labor, and money leads to crises in the corresponding domains of the environment, rising inequality and concentration of wealth, and financialization.

I work as a research assistant with the Center for Fair & Alternative Trade (CFAT) where, for my master's work, I studied the intersection of certification regimes and ethical finance and credit in smallholder agriculture in peripheral nations. We recently relaunched the new and improved Fair Trade Institute website, the world's leading resource for research on fair trade. My interest in Fair Trade centers around the processes through which social movements are institutionalized as "civil society" at the global level in order to correct governance inequalities and the democratic deficit in our global organizations.

Finally, I work as a research assistant for Dr. KuoRay Mao. Our work together centers on the progress of development in China's rural regions with a focus on the process of capitalization and market liberalization within the authoritarian state context. We work to uncover the often hidden processes that harm the most vulnerable populations and their habitats throughout rural China. We draw from green criminology, environmental justice, and political economy in our analysis of the management of water and natural resources and corresponding impacts on rural populations.

Teaching

Teaching is very important to me, as I really enjoy being in the classroom and working with students as they learn sociology and develop the 'sociological imagination'. I work to create the "conversational classroom" and empower students to take risks in voicing their opinions and thoughts. I work to embed sociological thinking within its philosophical roots, expanding student's understanding of their historical and social positionality. Finally, I work to bridge the gap in understanding between the micro and macro domains, so that students can attain a better understanding of their place in the world, both globally and locally, and why the social, political, and economic structures at the global level appear in their current forms.

I won the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award in Spring of 2020
"Nefratiri has not only been one of my favorite professors in the Sociology department, but one of my favorite in my entire time here at CSU. She is tremendously engaging, I genuinely enjoy learning in her class and hearing what she has to say. She displays information in a way that is easy to understand but also leaves you wanting more. She has ignited a fire within my academic career that has made me strive to learn more and more; something that I have never experienced before." – SOC 301 student