Hafsa Arain

Matriculated in September 2017

Research Interests

South Asia, gender and sexual minorities, community building, globalization, middle class aspirations, subjectivity, identity and belonging

About

Hafsa’s research focuses on middle-class queer and trans communities who are assigned female at birth in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest and most diverse city. Looking at emergent networks of lesbian, bisexual, and nonbinary communities, Hafsa’s work seeks to problematize the prevailing narratives of queer globalization which center white and Western perspectives of queerness and gender. This research explores the methods that queer and trans communities come together in community, as well as the emerging relationship scripts, understandings of trauma and hardship, geographies of belonging and identity, and digital authority practices that result from building new networks across Karachi.

Hafsa comes to anthropology after getting their M.A. in Islamic theology from Claremont School of Theology, where they focused on feminist interpretations of the Qur’an. Hafsa also has a bachelor’s degree in English literature, religious studies, and screenwriting from DePaul University in Chicago. In addition to her academic work, Hafsa is a published nonfiction essayist, paper crafter, and watercolorist. She has also recently begun learning how to make her own textiles on a loom. Their writing and paper art has been featured in the Washington Post, The Aerogram, and This Recording, among others.

Awards & Grants (amounts redacted)

• Senior Core Curriculum Writing Fellowship. (AY 2023-2024).
• Boston University GRS Summer Fellowship. (2023)
• Bloom Dissertation Writing Fellowship, Summer 2023.
• Summer Writing Grant, BU Anthropology Dept, Summer 2023
• Boston University Pardee School of Global Affairs – Globalization and Decolonization Fellow. (2022).
• Summer Writing Grant, BU Anthropology Dept, (2022).
• Boston University Long-Term Graduate Research Abroad Fellowship (GRAF). (2021)
• Boston University Pardee School of Global Affairs – Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA) Fellow. (2019-2020).
• Summer Research Grant, BU Anthropology Dept, (2019).
• Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS), (2018).
• Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers (IRT) Fellowship. (2016-2017) 
• Boston University Dean’s Fellowship (Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021).

Publications

• Hafsa Arain (2023). “Boy Cuts: Female Masculinity and Queer Aesthetics in Karachi, Pakistan.” Journal of Gender Studies.

Book Reviews

• Hafsa Arain (2023). “Review of Queer Companions: Religion, Public Intimacy, and Saintly Affects in Pakistan by Omar Kasmani.” Anthropological Quarterly 96 (2), 361-364.
• Hafsa Arain (2020), Book review of “Review of Unruly Visions: The Aesthetic Practices of Queer Diaspora by Gayatri
  Gopinath (2019).” Journal of Asian Ethnology.