Shari Daya
Ruth First Scholar 2001-02
Shari Daya is from South Africa. She took an MA in English Studies at Durham. She returned to South Africa and worked as an EFL teacher in Cape Town for a few months. She came back to the UK in 2002 and taught French at a high school in Darlington, followed by a summer job at a youth hostel on the North York Moors. She then took a PhD in Cultural Geography at Durham University, thanks to a scholarship from Ustinov College. Her research examined representations of food and consumption in contemporary South Asian women’s fiction, and perceptions of food and gender politics in the lives of South Asian women.”
Update from Shari in March 2007: “2006 has been a memorable year! In September, I married the man I had met and fallen in love with during my MA in 2001-02 – an unexpected outcome of the Ruth First Scholarship! 5 weeks later I submitted my PhD thesis and in December I passed my viva. The very next day we flew to Cape Town for a celebratory Christmas holiday, and now we are back in Durham where I am exploring career options in social research and looking forward to my graduation in June.”
In 2008, Shari returned to South Africa to take up a lectureship in the Department of Environmental & Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town, and was later promoted to Senior Lecturer.