Isabel Jijon

Isabel Jijon is a cultural sociologist who studies work, inequality, childhood, and globalization. Her research is comparative and focuses on Latin America and the global South. Broadly speaking, she is interested in how people create, develop, and challenge narratives of stigma and recognition. Isabel is publishing a book on these topics with Stanford University Press, called Making Sense of Child Labor: Or Why Working Children Defend their “Right to Work”?  In it, she analyzes a common but misunderstood problem in human rights advocacy, how transnational campaigns can stigmatize the very people they want to protect. Isabel has also published on globalization and collective memory, globalization and sport, and theories of translation.

Isabel has a Ph.D. with distinction from Yale University. She was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University, a Visiting Assistant Professor at Purchase College, and a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale's Fox International Fellowship. Isabel is currently a Research Consultant at UNICEF's Child Protection and Development Team. She received a 21st Century Dissertation Prize from Yale University for her research on child labor, given to a distinguished sociology dissertation that contributes to public policy or the public interest.