Zoë West

Affiliations

• Adjunct Faculty, OHMA - Human Rights & Oral History: Testimony, Memory, and Trauma

Contact

zw2306@columbia.edu 

About 

Zoë West is an anthropologist and oral historian whose work centers on labor, migration, and human rights. Her current research explores the promises and challenges of alternative labor organizing models for marginalized workers. Zoë positions herself at the intersection of grassroots and academic work, rooted in the commitment to helping social movements use research and documentation to fuel and strengthen their work. In this vein, she also works actively in teaching and training, and supporting groups in building power through creative strategy, deeper internal processes, and organizing across movements and identities. As a founding member of Rhiza Collective, Zoë develops frameworks for implementing collaborative research, transformative leadership development, narrative and healing work, and political education. She edited and compiled the oral history collection Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives from Survivors of Burma’s Military Regime (McSweeney’s/Voice of Witness, 2011), which was recently published in Burmese (NDSP Books, 2016). Zoë received her PhD in social anthropology from the University of Oxford.