I am university lecturer/docent and head of discipline in Global Development Studies. An ethnographer and film documentarist with eyes on feminisms & global politics of post-conflict/disaster reconstruction. My ongoing research ‘Gendered Political Violence and Urban Post-Disaster Reconstruction’ (Academy of Finland Fellow 2015-2020) studies the intersection of gender, disaster politics, political violence, and national ideologies in post-disaster urban Gujarat, India and gendered urban politics in the city of Banda Aceh in the aftermath of the 2005 Aceh peace process.

My PhD focused on the politics and normativity of gender mainstreaming initiatives in the post-tsunami and post-conflict reconstruction efforts in Aceh, Indonesia. In my postdoctoral research (2012-15), I continued with street ethnography in Banda Aceh focusing on post-disaster/conflict memoryspaces, social and spatial vernacular memory as a site of struggle: provoking norms in relation to gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and religion, through normative calls for gendered piety and propiety. In 2014 I started combining ethnography and life history methods with documentary film. More information to be found in scrapsofhope.info/aceh.

My other ongoing research projects include:

Researcher in ‘Aftermath of Aid: Assessing the Effectiveness and Sustainability of Post-Disaster Reconstruction in Aceh, Indonesia’ (2014-),  in a research cluster ‘women, post-disaster economics and livelihoods’ with Prof. Eka Srimulayani (UIN Ar-Raniry), Principal Investigator Dr. Patrick Daly, Earth Observatory of Singapore.