School of Social and Political Science

Dr Shruti Chaudhry

Chancellor's Fellow

SC
Shruti.Chaudhry@ed.ac.uk
+44 (0)131 6517112
3.14
Chrystal Macmillan Building
15a George Square,
Edinburgh
UK
EH8 9LD

Research interests

Children, families and relationships Gender, Feminism and Sexuality Health inequalities, disability and older people Intimacy Kinship, bodies and relatedness South Asian studies
  • Marriage, Families & Intimate Relationships
  • Friendship
  • Migration
  • Ageing & Life-course
  • Care
  • Gender Inequalities & Gender Based Violence
  • Race & Ethnicity
  • Ethnography & Qualitative Methods
  • India/South Asia & Scotland

Background

I am a Chancellor's Fellow in sociology and co-director of the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR). I completed a PhD in sociology from the University of Edinburgh in 2016. My doctoral research was a comparative ethnographic study of women who migrate for marriage, over large and small distances, to become brides in rural north India (Uttar Pradesh) in a context of poverty and inequalities of gender and caste. More recently, my research has focused on family life and ageing within the South Asian diasporas. My postdoctoral research, funded by the British Academy (2019-23), explored the relational lives of older adults (50 + years) of South Asian heritage (Indian Sikhs and Pakistani Muslims) in Scotland. Subsequently, I worked as a Research Fellow at the Edinburgh University Advanced Care Research Centre (ACRC) on ‘Understanding transitions in Care’, carrying out a small set of interviews with older people from the Black African, Chinese and South Asian communities in Edinburgh.

I have previously worked in the field of gender and development in India. Past research projects include: Gender and Migration: Negotiating Rights, A Women's Movement Perspective; The Political and Social Economy of Care in India; Addressing Adverse Sex-ratio in the Selected Districts of India.

Education

Ph.D. Sociology (University of Edinburgh)

M.Phil. Sociology (University of Delhi)

M.A. Sociology (University of Delhi)

B.A. Sociology (University of Delhi)

Publications

Book

2021 [2022, Paperback]. Moving for Marriage: Inequalities, Intimacy and Women's Lives in Rural North India. SUNY Press (Albany: New York) book series Genders in the Global South [Shortlisted for the British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS) Book Prize 2023].  

Edited Book

2024. Gender in South Asia and Beyond. Zubaan: New Delhi (with Hugo Gorringe and Radhika Govinda).

Articles & Book Chapters

Forthcoming 2025. Navigating Cultural Intimacies: Long-lasting Friendships in the Scottish South Asian Diasporas. The Sociological Review. 

2022. Mid- and Later-life Cross-Sex Friendships in Minority Ethnic Contexts: Insights from Scotland. Sociological Research Online. 27 (4): 947–963. 

2020. Covid-19 Public Health Messages and Minority Ethnic Older People in Scotland. Discover Society, (September 11).

2019. 'For how long can your piharwale intervene?' Accessing Natal kin support in rural north India. Modern Asian Studies, 53 (5): 1613-45.

2019. 'Flexible' caste boundaries: Cross-regional marriage as 'mixed' marriage in rural north India. Contemporary South Asia, 27 (2): 214-28.

2018. 'Now it is difficult to Get Married': Contextualising Cross-Regional Marriage and Bachelorhood in a North Indian Village, in Sharada Srinivasan and Shuzhuo Li (eds.). Scarce Women and Surplus Men in China and India: Macro Demographics versus Local Dynamics. Cham: Springer.

Current PhD Students

Atufah Nishat

Nuria Lopez Vazquez

 

 

 

Works within

By Appointment