Shireen Mirza
Areas of Interest & Expertise
- Urban Anthropology
- Caste, Labour, Waste and Sanitation
- Science, Technology and Society
- Cross-Regional Networks in the Indian Ocean Region
- Indian Islam
- Climate Change and Anthropocene
- Digital Materiality
Biography
Shireen has a PhD in Anthropology and Sociology from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her areas of interest are urban anthropology, caste, waste, ecology, and technology.
Previously, she taught at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIITD), Ambedkar University Delhi, and at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras).
She also worked as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi, and as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the ‘Urban Aspirations’ project at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen.
She is a recipient of the International Fellowship awarded by Urban Studies Foundation (USF), Visiting Research Fellowship at the Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) and Berlin Graduate School Cultures and Societies (BGSMCS), Germany and has been a Charles Wallace India Fellow.
Some of her publications include Becoming Waste: Three moments in the life of landfills in Mumbai city, in Economic and Political Weekly, as well as Cow Politics: Spatial Shifts in the Location of Slaughterhouses in Mumbai City, in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. Her works have also been published in Contributions to Indian Sociology, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and several other peer-reviewed journals.
Courses
Theories and Histories of Development
Histories and theories of development across contexts, tracing changes in the meaning of the practice of development.
Sociology of Modern India
Sociological approaches to modern India.
Publications
Book
- Mirza, S. (Forthcoming). Stigma in the City: Waste-work and animal slaughter at the margins of Mumbai. Cambridge University Press.
Chapters in Edited Books
- Mirza, S. (2022). Neoliberalism and majoritarian politics: Hindutva and restructuring the meat business in Mumbai. In S. Patel, D. Parthasarathy, & G. Jose (Eds.), Mumbai/Bombay: Majoritarian Neoliberalism, Informality, Resistance, and Wellbeing (pp. 84 – 95). Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Mumbai – Bombay-Majoritarian-Neoliberalism-Informality-Resistance-and/Patel-Parthasarathy-Jose/p/book/9781032276724
- Mirza, S. (2015). Muslims, media and mobility in the Indian Ocean Region. In J. Jones & A. Qasmi (Eds.), The Shi‘a in Modern South Asia: Religion, History and Politics (pp. 131 – 158). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316258798.008
- Mirza, S. (2014). Waqf and urban space: Production of a Muslim minority identity in Hyderabad’s old city. In J. Tripathy & S. Padmanabhan (Eds.), Becoming Minority: How Discourses and Policies Produce Minorities in Europe and India (pp. 293 – 314). Sage Publications. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9789351508090.n14
Journal Articles
- Mirza, S. (2020). The politics of waste and social inequalities in Indian cities. Oxford Bibliographies. 10.1093/OBO/9780199756223 – 0316
- Mirza, S. (2019). Becoming waste: Three moments in the life of landfills in Mumbai city. Economic and Political Weekly, 54(47), 36 – 41. https://www.epw.in/journal/2019/47/review-urban-affairs/becoming-waste.html
- Mirza, S. (2019). Cow politics: Spatial shifts in the location of slaughterhouses in Mumbai City, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 42(5), 861 – 879. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00856401.2019.1644766?scroll=top&needAccess=true
- Mirza, S. (2018). Figure of the Halalkhore: Caste and stigmatised labour in colonial Bombay. Economic and Political Weekly, 53(3), 79 – 85. https://www.epw.in/journal/2018/31/special-articles/figure-halalkhore.html
- Mirza, S. (2017). Lost worlds: Perspectives of decline among Shias of Hyderabad old city. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 51(2), 1 – 28. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0069966717697419?icid=int.sj-abstract.citing-articles
- Mirza, S. (2014). Traveling saints and connecting print cultures: Two conceptions of Twelver Shi’i reformism in the Indian Ocean. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3(24), 455 – 475. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society/article/abs/travelling-leaders-and-connecting-print-cultures-two-conceptions-of-twelver-shii-reformism-in-the-indian-ocean1/54B5783C89E0552157FA72221F9397AB
Magazine Article
- Mirza, S. (2022). Stigma and caste labour in Urban India. Global Dialogue. https://globaldialogue.isa-sociology.org/articles/stigma-and-caste-labor-in-urban-india