Syeda “Rumana” Mehdi

Rumana Mehdi is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology. Rumana’s research centres around widows’ experiences of piety and how these are impacted by social status of widowhood. She examines this through the lens of shrine rituals in Pakistan and the notion that shrines are public sanctuaries known to challenge social norms and identities. Rumana is also interested in seeing how silence and mundanity of every-day rhythm plays out in the lives of widows and whether this has any impact in their spiritual and/or religious endeavors. To learn more about Mehdi’s research and publications, visit her webpage.

In Spring 2024, Rumana received a CISS Summer mini-grant to support her embarking on a ten-day pilgrimage to the shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq with a group of Pakistani Shia women. This trip will help her in understanding the presence of women in shrines in general and how private experiences of piety and loss are manifested in public display of female mourning in particular. Not only will this fieldwork provide an important regional and comparative dimension to Rumana’s dissertation research, but it will also challenge existing social, political and religious assumptions about sacred spaces and how knowledge is formed and transmitted within these spaces and beyond. Learn more in our featured article.

In Spring 2025, Rumana received a CISS Summer mini-grant to to embark on the 15 day Arbaeen pilgrimage to Iraq which comprises of the largest human gathering in the world. This experience will help her in understanding how ritual complicates linear time and how it leads to wish fulfillment. Learn more in our featured article.