I am a feminist-economic geographer studying work, employment and the social regulation of labor markets using co-produced, qualitative methods.
The goal of my research is to advance understanding of how labor markets work from the perspective of marginalized, informal workers. Themes of particular interest include the variegation of capitalist work through social and spatial forms of exploitation and the political economy of labor market data and information infrastructures.
Being Dignified: Exploitation, Agency, Domestic Work
My doctoral thesis intervenes in Marxist-feminist debates on forms of exploitation within capitalist work from the perspective of domestic workers in South Asia. I expand spatialized boundaries of what is considered “domestic” work, including hostels as critical spaces of domestic employment in urban Nepal. I argue that broader forms of social and spatial exploitation are key to including Nepali domestic workers’ experiences in labour and employment studies, including domains of relational, temporal and in-kind-based exploitation. The thesis makes recommendations for ‘dignifying’ domestic work without assuming its transition into autonomous, marketized versions of work seen in the ILO’s decent work agenda.
Artwork co-developed with Dami Arts in Janakpur, Nepal.
Publications and Methods
My published and ongoing work uses inclusive, qualitative methods to examine the labour process among workers frequently excluded from dominant labor market knowledge. I have conducted research with domestic workers, rural entrepreneurs, young mothers, and waste pickers across Nepal (2020–25), Indonesia (2020–21), and Bangladesh (2019).
These projects include collaborations with the Asian Development Bank, Restless Development, E-SheBee Social Enterprise and the University of Edinburgh.
Methods I use include work-life histories, diary methods, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and creative and visual methods.
2025
“Domestic Work and Unfreedom: Theorizing Capitalist Variegation within South Asia” – Submitted to Progress in Human Geography
“Being Dignified: Understanding Socio-Spatial Exploitation and Agency in Nepali Domestic Work” – PhD Thesis Embargoed in the University of Cambridge Online Library. Request Access.
“Entrepreneurship As Struggle: The Crises and Politics of Entrepreneurial Becomings” in Economic Anthropology with Huang, J.Q., Bassett, J., Chisholm, P. and Geary, H. Open Access.
2024
“Caring Through Translation: A Dialogue on Ethics and Inclusivity in Cross Language Research” in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods (Peer Reviewed) with Baniya, A. Open Access.
“Mortgaged futures: fractured livelihoods and youth debts during COVID-19 – 2024” in Journal of Youth Studies (Peer Reviewed) with Barford, A., McCarthy, G., Osborne, H., Pratiwi, A. M., Pradhan, K., & Shrestha, S. Open Access.
2023
“Disaster Diaries: Qualitative Research at a Distance” in International Journal of Qualitative Methods (Peer Reviewed) with Barford, A., Osborne, H., Pradhan, K., Proefke, R., Shrestha, S. and Pratiwi, A.M. Open Access.
Public Engagement
Short Film: “Didilai Didiko Sandesh”
This is a 4-minute short film co-produced and co-written with domestic workers in urban Nepal during my doctoral fieldwork in 2024. The film emerged from women’s desire to share their ‘hidden’ experiences more widely with domestic workers across South Asia, leveraging frequent social media use in the region.
The film was selected for the 2024 Cambridge Creative Encounters cohort and 2024 Film Geographies Screening at the American Association of Geographers. Today, it has over 900,000 views.
Watch on Facebook here.
Artist Collaboration: “Domestic Work is Decent Work” with Dami Arts
Four canvas illustrations co-developed with Dami Arts correspond to key findings of my 2025 doctoral research “Being Dignified: Understanding Socio-Spatial Exploitation and Agency in Nepali Domestic Work.” We are pitching this artwork to galleries in Kathmandu with findings summaries as an additional avenue for public engagement.
Pilot Diary Study: “Youth in a time of crisis: Livelihood diaries from Nepal and Indonesia during COVID-19”
This pilot study pioneered a remote and youth-led diary-method study during a time of mobility restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report summarizes key findings and policy recommendations from over 1400 diary entries by young workers in Indonesia and Nepal.
Read the report here.
Political Economies of Labor Market Data: Missing Voices, Flattened Rhythms
My next project examines labor market data infrastructures, focusing on how local labor processes are abstracted and translated into standardized classifications. I critique how these data practices flatten workers’ lived experiences and shape policy and governance outcomes.
Methodologically, I am interested in applying ‘trained’ large and small language models to the analysis of large-N qualitative data (drawing on work-life histories), with the aim of producing more complex and spatially grounded representations of employment experience in labor market policy.
Teaching
Geographies of Employment
This course examines labor relationships in the 21st century. It analyzes labor market segmentation across the Global North and South through labor market institutions, welfare and workfare states, precarious work, decent work and the development agenda, technological change and gig economies and emerging green work goals.
Development Policies and Practices
This course examines approaches to development from post-WWII to the present day, critiquing the concept of ‘development’ and balancing political economy approaches with indigenous and ethnographic accounts of wellbeing, value, social reproduction and diverse economies research.
Co-Producing Knowledge for Inclusivity
This course explores what it means for qualitative research to be developed in equitable and inclusive ways, particularly with socio-economically marginalized interlocutors. It is grounded in feminist theories of ‘care,’ ‘epistemic justice,’ and ‘co-production’.
Grace E. Mueller 