Saheira Haliel

Dr Saheira Haliel (also known as Heila Sha) is a Research Fellow in Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex, associated with the Sussex Asia Centre. She joined the university in 2016 as part of the ERC-funded TRODITIES project, conducting fieldwork in Zhejiang province, China, focusing on transnational marriages and interactions between Chinese citizens and foreign traders.

• Education: Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the Max-Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany (2015).

Research Interests: Her work bridges kinship/family studies, aging, gender, and transnationalism, with a focus on globalization’s impact on personal relationships and cultural dynamics. Publications highlight tensions over money in transnational marriages, trade-driven mobility, and eldercare practices in China.

Key Projects: Member of the interdisciplinary TRODITIES project, analyzing how Chinese commodity trading facilitates cross-cultural exchanges in business, marriage, and social life.