Cultural Anthropology
Shahana Munazir joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a PhD in Socio-cultural Anthropology in the Fall of 2019. Her dissertation, titled Daughters of Destiny: Temporalities and Ethics of care in Muslim Households in India, draws on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Delhi and Patna and examines “kismat” (destiny) as a temporal and epistemological category. Through this lens, she explores how Muslim women articulate their responsibilities, fears, hopes, and aspirations in relation to their understanding of destiny, ethics of care, and globally circulating notions of patriarchy and gender equality. Shahana’s research challenges dominant narratives that portray Muslim women’s aspirations as purely teleological. Instead, she uncovers how destiny forms a complex temporal horizon through which women navigate their precarious present, reflect on their past, and work toward a better future, within the constraints and possibilities of kinship networks. Her fieldwork reveals a dynamic interplay between structure and agency, reflecting on fundamental questions about what it means to practice care, to have patience, to trust, and to depend on others within an Islamic ethical framework. Shahana’s dissertation research has been supported by the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS), Department of Anthropology, and Gender and Women’s Studies at UW-Madison. Prior to joining UW-Madison, Shahana received the Chief Minister’s Fellowship to work with the Government of Delhi in the Department of Social Justice in 2018. Shahana has a B.A. in History from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi and an MPhil in Anthropology from the University of Oxford on the Indira Gandhi Oxford Graduate Scholarship at Somerville College.