Syeda “Rumana” Mehdi

Syeda Rumana Mehdi (she/her) is a third year Ph.D. candidate in anthropology and is broadly interested in anthropology of religion, kinship, and gender. She is particularly interested in how intense religious experiences impact women and studies Pakistani Shi’i women’s experiences of pilgrimage to Karbala, Iraq. To learn more about Rumana’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.

In Spring 2026, Rumana was awarded a summer mini-grant for her year-long dissertation fieldwork in which she will accompany Pakistani Shi’i women on pilgrimage to Iraq and then hang out with them after they return to Pakistan to understand the ways in which the intense experience of pilgrimage impacts their lives.