Research Focus Areas

Short Biography

Shreya Bhat is a Research Fellow in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, working under the supervision of Dr. Monika Palmberger. She specializes in qualitative research methods within the fields of migration and gender studies. Her doctoral research examines the financial lives of migrants from West African countries—such as Nigeria, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Liberia, and Ghana—living in Sicily. Her focus includes their remittance practices, engagement in formal and informal economies, and their understanding of care obligations toward non-migrant family members in their home countries, as well as how these are shaped by religious institutions in Sicily. She holds an MA in Gender and Development Studies. Outside academia, she has nearly ten years of experience working on issues concerning migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. This includes work with grassroots organisations in India; the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Libya and Afghanistan; the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) in Somalia; the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) in Asia and the Pacific; and the Migration Policy Institute (MPI).