Arwa Hussain

Thesis supervisor: Lynda Clarke

Thesis title: Religion, Community, and Self in the Lives of Dawoodi Bohra Women

Arwa Hussain is a 2022-23 Public Scholar at Concordia University and doctoral candidate in the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University, Montreal. 

Arwa holds an M.A and M.Phil degree in History from the University of Karachi, Pakistan and is also the recipient of the Hamida Khuhro Gold Medal of Excellence and Karachi University Merit Award.  Her M.Phil thesis looks at how history has been taught in Pakistani schools and universities and proposes the inclusion of South Asian historical fiction for the development of alternative methods of history teaching.

Arwa’s current research interests deal with Islamic communities particularly the Dawoodi Bohra community, gender and agency, social media, diaspora and community, and digital ethnography. Her dissertation considers the everyday lives of pious Dawoodi Bohra  women to understand how these women embed their agency  within a religious community to constitute a self that is multilayered and challenges the way religious women’s lives have been understood in scholarship. Her doctoral research is supported by Concordia University and the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture bourse de doctorate awarded by the government of Quebec.