School of Social and Political Science

Background

Laila Rajani is a PhD candidate at School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. She is also a member of Centre of Biomedicine, Self and Society hosted at the Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh, and a visiting fellow at the Health Matters working group at the University of Vienna. Her research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, examines unintended consequences of development programmes on mental health and the underlying neoliberal logics that govern the psychiatric care provided as an antidote in Tharparkar region of Sindh, Pakistan. 

Drawing on critical global health, anthropology of development, and medical anthropology, Laila’s project focusses on how mental health actors—psychiatrists, police officers, lady health workers, public health officials, and private and development sector professionals—broker and translate psy-discourses in a rapidly modernising region. Against the backdrop of ongoing coal extraction, subsequent transforming ecologies and shifting politics in Tharparkar, the research aims to nuance the public understanding around development and health inequities and contribute to growing literature on the subject in South Asia.  

Broadly, Laila is interested in how we understand progress and well-being, and how it shapes our understanding of what makes a good life. Previously, Laila has worked on shifts in family dynamics during coronavirus pandemic in Karachi, Pakistan (UCL), Islamophobia and art industry amongst Pakistani Americans in New York City, USA (Brooklyn Arts Council), and post-conflict rehabilitation in Swat, Pakistan, after the end of counterinsurgency in 2012 (Collective for Social Science Research).  She has also worked as a reporter for Dawn’s Herald magazine, high school teacher in Lima and Karachi, and as development practitioner at UNESCO and World Bank Islamabad.  

Laila's project is jointly supervised by Dr Kaveri Qureshi(primary), Dr Sumeet Jain, and Professor Martyn Pickersgill.

Presentations:

“Psychiatry in a time of flux: notes from an outpatient psychiatry clinic in Tharparkar, Pakistan". Vienna Anthropology Days (VANDA). Austria, September 2024.

“Evidencing a health crisis: motivations and practices of producing suicide statistics in Tharparkar, Pakistan". South Asia Anthropology Group (SAAG). UCL, London, September 2024.

“Inaccessible: examining the visions and realities of a telepsychiatry clinic in southern Pakistan". European Association of Social Anthropology. Barcelona, Spain. July 2024.

“Against Mental Health: understanding the coexistence of development and distress in Tharparkar, Sindh”. Guest lecture at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, Pakistan. January 2024.

“Understanding the response to suicides in Sindh, Pakistan: a study of mental health ‘experts’”. Guest lecture at the Advances in Public Health, Medical Anthropology, and Health Sciences Symposium, Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, Jamshoro, November 2023 (news coverage)

“Understanding the response to suicides in Sindh, Pakistan: a study of mental health ‘experts’”. Speaker at the Global Mental Health Day, University of Edinburgh. June, 2023.