Background

Dr. Rezwana Karim Snigdha is an anthropologist, gender expert, and feminist scholar with over twenty years of experience in teaching, ethnographic research, training, and advocacy. She is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Jahangirnagar University, where she has taught since 2010, and serves concurrently as part-time Associate Professor at North South University.

She completed her BSS (2006) and MSS (2007) in Anthropology at Jahangirnagar University — standing First Class, First Position in both — before earning her PhD at the Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand (2021). Her doctoral thesis, “Beyond Binaries: An Ethnographic Study of Hijra in Dhaka, Bangladesh,” is recognised internationally for its sensitive, situated account of gender-diverse life in South Asia.

Her research sits at the threshold of gender, body, and belonging: Hijra and queer studies, masculinity studies, medical anthropology, sexual and reproductive health, climate vulnerability among coastal women, and the politics of religion and media. Her 2023 monograph, In Search of Women's Self (নারীসত্তার অন্বেষণে), has drawn over 320 scholarly citations.

She has presented at the World Anthropology Union and IUAES world congresses and lectured at Jawaharlal Nehru University, South Asian University, and the University of Iowa. In 2025 she was awarded a competitive World Bank / UGC HEAT research grant of USD 80,000 — placing among the top 10.2% of proposals nationally.

Alongside her scholarship she leads and serves widely — as Hall Provost of Begum Sufia Kamal Hall, a Trustee of the National Child Welfare Trust, International Coordinator for IMRF Bangladesh, and a peer reviewer for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Asian Women, the Journal of Homosexuality, and Contemporary South Asia.