Asha Sawhney

I am a PhD Candidate completing my dissertation titled "Going South to Go North: A Multi-Sited Ethnography of Migrant Autonomy and State Control in Uruguay and the United States."

Based on 18-months of ethnographic research comprised of semi-structured interviews and participant observation in Montevideo and Chicago, along with supplementary media and document analysis, my dissertation synthesizes scholarship from global and transnational studies, the sociology of migration, Latino/a/x studies, Latin American studies, and political economic theory. I use ethnography as a method to refine theory, with the specific aim of advancing a framework that can articulate how Uruguay’s state approach of universal regularization and the United States’ promotion of mass detention and deportation exist within a connected regime of global migratory control. 

My broader research agenda spans global and transnational studies, the sociology of migration, Latin American and Latino/a/x studies, political economic theory, and social movements. Regionally, I have a background in both Latin American and South Asian Studies. Theoretically, I am especially interested in the Autonomy of Migration (AoM) perspective.