Ayesha Masood Chaudhry is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the Australian National University, within the ANU School of Culture, History & Language. Her research interests lie in the areas of gender, marriage, and transnationalism. Her PhD thesis focuses on an ethnographic exploration of the everyday experiences of single Pakistani Muslim women in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. She brings phenomenological insights in conversation with the philosophical ideals of South Asian scholar and poet, Muhammad Iqbal, to bring forth a conceptualisation of the agency of my female single Muslim interlocutors that is more pertinent to the Pakistani urban context at hand.

For her undergraduate thesis, Ayesha focused on local receptions of dual citizenship in urban Pakistan. Her MPhil thesis continued with this transnational focus through ethnographic research on the dynamics of inter-ethnic marriages by British Pakistanis in London. Her PhD research is an extension of this foray into marriage and transnationalism. Ayesha also has three years of teaching experience in anthropology.