Humanitarian Activism and Civil Society

Shai M. Dromi is Associate Senior Lecturer on Sociology at Harvard University. He is a cultural and comparative-historical sociologist with research on international humanitarian organizations and movements, transnational advocacy, and political culture. His research looks at the role of religion and cultural beliefs in creating civil society organizations and movements, and in shaping the production of social knowledge. Dromi's first book, Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Construction of the Humanitarian Relief Sector (University of Chicago Press, 2020) and Moral Minefields: How Sociologists Debate Good Science (University of Chicago Press, 2023), and co-editor of The Handbook of the Sociology of Morality, vol. 2 (Springer, 2023). At Harvard, Dromi teaches courses in the areas of nonprofit organizations, global and transnational sociology, religion and politics, and sociological theory. He received numerous teaching awards, as well as an ABLConnect Teaching Innovator Award and an Extraordinary Teaching in Extraordinary Times commendation for flexibility and creativity in addressing the challenges of learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.