MsSana Amjad

Sana is a PhD candidate in Gender, Peace and Development Studies in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University. She also teaches in the social sciences at Deakin as a Graduate Teaching Fellow.

Her doctoral research examines how Swati women and men negotiate gender roles and relations in everyday life after migrating to Australia. Centred primarily on Swati households in Melbourne, her ethnographic project explores paid work, domestic labour, caregiving, decision-making, family obligations, community participation and separation from extended-family networks. It also considers the significance of terrorism in participants’ lives and how flooding in Swat shapes relationships and responsibilities across distance. Her work engages feminist, postcolonial, migration and crisis scholarship to examine how gendered expectations are maintained, adjusted or renegotiated in everyday life.

Sana has teaching and research experience across higher education and policy institutions in Pakistan, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Australia. She has worked with international organisations including the Kofi Annan Foundation, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Project EduAccess and OPP, as well as grassroots organisations in Pakistan, including Khwendo Jirga and the Beydaar Society. Before commencing her PhD, she was a Lecturer at the National University of Modern Languages and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Swat, where she taught social sciences.

She holds an MPhil and MSc in Pakistan Studies from Quaid-i-Azam University, receiving Gold Medals for both degrees. Her previous research examined women’s empowerment in patriarchal and conflict-affected societies.