Welcome Dr Yasmeen Arif

The School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography is delighted to welcome Dr Yasmeen Arif, who joins the School to take up her British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. 

I’m thrilled to been awarded this British Academy fellowship and to be coming back to Oxford for this new opportunity. The School of Anthropology was my home during my DPhil and I benefited enormously from so many enriching exchanges with colleagues and friends there. The dedicated time to carry out new research, write and publish will be life-changing at this point in my career.

Dr Yasmeen Arif

Dr Arif’s postdoctoral research investigates the meanings of tree-planting in urban Pakistan, focusing on the city of Lahore. Using participant observation and interview methods, she explores what meanings afforestation takes on in the midst of the 21st century climate crisis. What does the act of planting a tree symbolise in Pakistan's postcolonial landscape? Who is included, and who excluded, in the project of 'greening' Lahore? What can urban afforestation tell us about the experience of living in climate crisis, and the futures that become (un)imaginable as a result?

The British Academy’s flagship Postdoctoral Fellowship scheme offers outstanding early career researchers the opportunity to strengthen their experience of research and teaching in an academic environment; with the goal of completing a significant piece of publishable research. The scheme gives award holders a foundation on which to build their academic career, allowing them to integrate into the community of established scholars within their field.

Dr Arif’s research interests include gender, race, care and social reproduction, and the anthropology of Islam. Her doctoral research explored urban dormitory-style hostels in the city of Lahore as liminal spaces preparing rural-origin female migrants for uncertain futures, making contributions to the anthropology of class, gender and education in South Asia. Her previous research focused on British Muslim responses to securitization and anti-Muslim prejudice.