I am an anthropologist trained in political economy and gender studies. My research focuses on migration, the patriarchal family and rural capitalism. I am currently a Post-doctoral Associate at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. I am also a member of Jamhoor.org, a Left magazine on South Asia and its diasporas.  

Before doing my Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Toronto (2024), I did an M.A. in Gender and Development from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex (2013) and a B.A. in Political Science, Economics and French from the University of Toronto (2011).  

My current book project, Plastic Patriarchy: Migration, Honor and Capitalism in Rural Pakistan, explores how transnational joint families are simultaneously shaping capitalist development and patriarchal family relations ‘from below’. Against perspectives that see patriarchy as a rigid relic of the past, I argue that the fluidity of patriarchy allows for its persistence over time, making it a central node through which capitalism develops. This research is based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork in rural Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

This research has been supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Social Science and Humanities Research Council, Jackman Humanities Institute and the Centre for Ethnography.