Daniel Jaffee is an environmental and rural sociologist. His research examines conflicts over water privatization and commodification; the social, environmental, and economic impacts of bottled and packaged water; and social movements around bottled water and water justice in both the global North and South.
He also studies the international fair trade movement and system, examining the benefits and limitations of participation in fair trade markets for small-scale commodity producers, as well as the contested politics of fair trade and agri-food certification, and social movements around food and agriculture.
He is the author of Unbottled: The Fight Against Plastic Water and for Water Justice, published by University of California Press, which received the 2024 Outstanding Publication Award from the American Sociological Association's Environmental Sociology section. His first book, Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival, received the C. Wright Mills Book Award.
He received his Ph.D. in 2006 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.