Asangi Mira Gunawansa
PhD
As a researcher, Mira's projects and ethics focus on decolonisation, unlearning bias, and highlighting intersectional, sustainable approaches to women's empowerment and international development.
Concurrent to her PhD in Sociology, Mira is a Research and Project Manager for the university's Gender Equity Initiative. She has worked on projects that have investigated the rights of caregivers in the Victorian Public Sector, created resources for the employment of women seeking asylum in Victoria, and assisted in the decolonising of curriculum for the university's Master of Social Policy. Mira also holds a Master in Development Studies and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics and International Studies.
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Thesis
Understanding the Mental Load of Immigrant Mothers
This research seeks to better understand the experiences of immigrant mothers as they relocate from the Global South to the Global North in search of a better quality of life. By focusing on their Mental Loads, this work hopes to explore how migration stress might influence gender expectations of mothers in immigrant families, and their consequential experiences and emotions. This project will adopt a cross-disciplinary approach of sociology, gender, and migration studies through community-informed research to see how immigrant mothers' Mental Loads compare to that of non-immigrant mothers, and what the impacts of their loads are on their health and relationships.
Research interests
- Gender
- Migration
- Family
- Diaspora
- Equity