Ayesha Omer is an Assistant Professor of digital anthropology at York University. Her interdisciplinary scholarship broadly examines how infrastructure technologies mediate sociopolitical life. Her book project, Networks of Dust: Media, Infrastructure, and Ecology along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, explores issues of technological mediation, political sovereignty, and climate justice across China’s network of digital energy, communications, and logistics infrastructure in the indigenous borderlands of the Pakistani state, as part of the global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Her research draws on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, research in Pakistani state archives, visual analysis of digital Chinese and Pakistani media content, CPEC policy documents, and has been supported by several grants, including the American Association of University Women (AAUW) International Doctoral Fellowship and the Global Dissertation Fellowship at NYU Shanghai.

Ayesha Omer completed her Ph.D. from New York University and held post-doctoral fellowships at the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the University of Southern California, and the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania. She has a background in mixed-media and public performance art, and her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming in publications such as, ArtNow, Cityscapes, Tanqeed, Cultural Studies, the Palgrave Handbook on New Directions in Kashmir Studies, and the SAGE Handbook of Data and Society, among others.

Research Interests

Upcoming Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Winter 2025	AP/ANTH2120 3.0	M	Media, Representation and Culture	LECT
Winter 2025	GS/ANTH5220 3.0	M	Technoscientific Cultures	SEMR

Ayesha Omer is an Assistant Professor of digital anthropology at York University. Her interdisciplinary scholarship broadly examines how infrastructure technologies mediate sociopolitical life. Her book project, Networks of Dust: Media, Infrastructure, and Ecology along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, explores issues of technological mediation, political sovereignty, and climate justice across China’s network of digital energy, communications, and logistics infrastructure in the indigenous borderlands of the Pakistani state, as part of the global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Her research draws on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, research in Pakistani state archives, visual analysis of digital Chinese and Pakistani media content, CPEC policy documents, and has been supported by several grants, including the American Association of University Women (AAUW) International Doctoral Fellowship and the Global Dissertation Fellowship at NYU Shanghai.

Ayesha Omer completed her Ph.D. from New York University and held post-doctoral fellowships at the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the University of Southern California, and the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania. She has a background in mixed-media and public performance art, and her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming in publications such as, ArtNow, Cityscapes, Tanqeed, Cultural Studies, the Palgrave Handbook on New Directions in Kashmir Studies, and the SAGE Handbook of Data and Society, among others.

Degrees

PhD in Media, Culture and Communication, New York University
MA in Arts Politics, New York University, Tisch School of the Arts
BA in Political Science, Davidson College

Research Interests

Upcoming Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Winter 2025	AP/ANTH2120 3.0	M	Media, Representation and Culture	LECT
Winter 2025	GS/ANTH5220 3.0	M	Technoscientific Cultures	SEMR