Zunaira K. Shakur

Zunaira Komal Shakur is a President's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from UC Davis, with a dissertation examining psychiatric practices, Islamic medicine, and resistance in Kashmir. Her research bridges medical anthropology, psychoanalysis, and postcolonial theory.

• B.S., Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis
• B.A., History, Washington University in St. Louis
• M.A., Cultural Studies, University of California, Davis
• Ph.D., Anthropology, University of California, Davis

Her work focuses on:

• Militarized psychiatry in Kashmir
• Anthropology of Islam and Islamic medicine
• Psychoanalytic interpretations of colonial trauma
• Gender performativity under occupation
• Quranic healing practices in contested spaces
• Decolonial approaches to medical anthropology

Key publication trends include analyses of Kashmiri resistance through psychiatric frameworks, critiques of gendered violence under colonialism, and intersections of Islamic theology with mental health discourses.

Scientific awards:

• President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
• Wenner-Gren Foundation Fellow
• Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellow