Inequalities, Identities, and Justice
Protests against racism and structural inequality crescendoed in the United States and more than 60 countries around the world in 2020. At the Einaudi Center, researchers with regional specialties spanning the globe joined this world call for justice and accountability, launching Einaudi's racial justice global research priority.
As our work grew in 2021, our focus broadened to intersectional inequalities—in all places worldwide where marginalized groups struggle for access to resources, health, rights, security, and well-being. The Einaudi Center brings together faculty, students, and the campus community to identify and understand oppression; study the policies, systems, and institutions that perpetuate inequality and violence; and engage to create a more just world.
We support public scholarship and thought leadership to address inequalities experienced across the globe, including cleavages in society like race, religion, gender and sexuality, class, caste, language, and ethnicity. Our work begins on campus and extends to partnerships with international scholars and institutions.
Advocacy for Equality and Justice
Systemic and overlapping inequalities create barriers to achieving social justice on a global scale. Einaudi’s programs and faculty are working together to identify opportunities for transformative change: new and practical ways to understand, communicate, and act to reduce existing inequalities and build a future with equal justice and opportunities. Our research is part of Cornell’s commitment to public engagement and community action.
Here are some key areas of inquiry:
- How are hierarchies of race, class, caste, and other social identities constructed and maintained over time?
- How do people experience social inequities and act to challenge them?
- How is inequality institutionalized in different places and contexts?
- Which specific systems and policies today promote inequality and exclusion?
- What policy solutions will create greater equality and justice?
Featured Faculty
Edward Baptist: Inequalities Faculty Fellow
Edward Baptist leads Einaudi's inequalities, identities, and justice research priority in academic years 2022–24. If you're a researcher interested in contributing, please reach out by email.
Read about Baptist's research on slavery and policing.
Gerard Aching: Underground Railroad Project
As director of Cornell's Underground Railroad project, Gerard Aching is working with a multidisciplinary research team to help Ithaca's historic St. James A.M.E. Zion Church tell its story and uncover new details about its past. His Underground Railroad seminar is part of Einaudi’s migration studies minor. Read about the community dig in the Chronicle.
Einaudi Center Publication
The Made-Up State: Technology, Trans Femininity, and Citizenship in Indonesia
By Benjamin Hegarty
Benjamin Hegarty contends that warias, one of Indonesia's trans feminine populations, have cultivated a distinctive way of captivating the affective, material, and spatial experiences of belonging to a modern public sphere. Southeast Asia Program Publications: December 2022
Featured Students
Global Racial Justice Fellow Eun A Jo
PhD candidate Eun A Jo is completing a dissertation on how states’ memory projects during moments of profound transition—such as decolonization and democratization—can shape politics of international reconciliation. Meet all of our Global Racial Justice Fellows.
Einaudi Academic Opportunity
Global Summer Internships
The Einaudi Center's global internships for undergraduates are back this summer! Einaudi internships connect you with faculty conducting international research or global practitioners partnering with our regional programs.
