معرفی
Maira Hayat is an Assistant Professor of Environment and Peace Studies at the Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame, with a concurrent appointment in the Department of Anthropology. Her research focuses on bureaucracy, law, and the environment, employing ethnographic and archival methods. She holds a PhD from the University of Chicago (2018), an MSc from the University of Oxford, and a BA from Lahore University of Management Sciences (2008). Prior to Notre Dame, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Department of Anthropology and the Woods Institute for the Environment.
Her current book project, The Work of Water: Infrastructure, Bureaucratic Labor, and the Postcolonial Promise in Pakistan, examines water governance and colonial legacies. Notable awards include the S.S. Pirzada Dissertation Prize (2019) and the Sylvia Forman Prize (2018). Her teaching emphasizes environmental justice and community engagement, earning grants like the Cardinal Course Grant Award (Notre Dame) and the Starr Lectureship (University of Chicago).
Her research has been supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, National Science Foundation, and American Institute of Pakistan Studies. Key publications explore topics like dam politics, bureaucratic ethics, and imperial sovereignty. She has taught courses on climate change, coloniality, and peace studies at Notre Dame, Stanford, and the University of Chicago.
Her work interrogates how imperial and postcolonial ecologies shape governance, sovereignty, and environmental justice, particularly in Pakistan. She critiques climate imperialism and advocates for global accountability in the face of crises like the 2022 floods, emphasizing reparations and historical responsibility.
