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. 

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.

My dissertation received an Honorable Mention for the S.S. Pirzada Dissertation Prize at the Institute of South Asia Studies, University of California, Berkeley.

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

Before doing a 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).