I am an Associate Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. My research focuses on the role of religion and cultural beliefs in shaping civil society organizations and movements. I have researched and published on civic associations such as international humanitarian organizations, environmental and political movements, and human rights groups. I teach courses in the areas of organizations, global and transnational sociology, cultural sociology, and sociological theory.
My new book, co-authored with Samuel D. Stabler, is called Moral Minefields: How Sociologists Debate Good Research (University of Chicago Press, 2023). This book looks at the ways sociologists and other social scientists maneuver morally controversial research areas, and how they weather or circumvent contentious subjects and the disputes they cause. Moral Minefields argues that progress in the social sciences involves, alongside empirical discovery, the creation of new moral frameworks justifying the methodological and theoretical assumptions underpinning social research. The book is available to order from the University of Chicago Press website.
My first book, Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Making of the Humanitarian NGO Sector (University of Chicago Press, 2020), examined the origins and development of the humanitarian relief NGO field, and drew on archival research at the International Committee of the Red Cross and related repositories. The book is available on the University of Chicago Press website. I am also co-editor of the Handbook of the Sociology of Morality, vol. 2 (Springer, 2023, introduction available here).
My work has appeared in journals such as Rural Sociology, Sociological Theory and Theory & Society, and received awards from the American Sociological Association and the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. Additionally, I serve Chair of the Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity Section of the American Sociological Association for 2025-2026 and Treasurer of the Social Science History Association for 2024-2028.
You can read here about my research and teaching. Contact me at shai.dromi@g.harvard.edu, and follow me at @DromiShai.
Photo credit: Mira Whiting Photography.
