Biography
Farhana Afrin Rahman is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow and Isaac Newton Trust Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge, as well as a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College Cambridge. Prior to this, she was a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Tokyo, a Non-Residential Fellow at the Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies at the University of Auckland, and a Fellow at the Harvard University Asia Center. Farhana received her PhD in 2021 from the University of Cambridge's Centre for Gender Studies. Her PhD dissertation was shortlisted for the 2023 ICAS Best Dissertation Prize, and received the accolade for "Most Accessible and Captivating Work for the Non-Specialist Reader". She also holds an MPhil in Multi-Disciplinary Gender Studies from the University of Cambridge (2014), and an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies, International Relations, and Arabic from the University of Toronto (2011).
Farhana's first book, "After the Exodus: Gender and Belonging in Bangladesh's Rohingya Refugee Camps", is forthcoming in 2024 with Cambridge University Press. Through feminist ethnographic research, the book explores how the mass exodus of the Rohingya community to the refugee camps outside of Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh has affected the gendered subjectivities and lived experiences of Rohingya refugee women. Her Leverhulme project is a multi-sited ethnography exploring the transformation of gendered dynamics after forced migration at different geographic endpoints – the "camp" and the "city". Farhana's peer-reviewed articles and chapters have been published in various journals and edited volumes, including Journal of Refugee Studies, Feminist Review, and Journal of International Women’s Studies.
Farhana is a recipient of the UNESCO Silk Roads Research Grant 2023 where she is currently conducting a project titled "Gendered Fields of Red Gold: Women and Saffron Along the Silk Road". She is also co-founder of Silkpath Relief Organization (silkpathrelief.org), a non-profit providing humanitarian assistance to individuals devastated by calamities – in Afghanistan, and with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and Malaysia. In 2015, she helped to establish the first academic program in gender studies in Afghanistan, based at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, where she was a lecturer. Since 2014, Farhana has worked as a consultant providing technical expertise and trainings on gender equality, social policy, and human rights for various projects across the globe. For her extensive research and work contributions to the field of gender and development, Farhana was the 2021 recipient of the Paula Kantor Award from the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).
Research
Farhana’s research interests include gender, refugees and forced migration, international development, lived experiences in Asia, and violence and conflict, amongst others.
Publications
Books
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(2024) After the Exodus: Gender and Belonging in Bangladesh’s Rohingya Refugee Camps, Cambridge University Press. [Series: “South Asia in the Social Sciences”]
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
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(2023) “Rickety Boats to Refuge(e): Migration, Gender, and Subjectivity Among Rohingya Refugee Women.” Journal of Critical Realism in Socio- Economics (JOCRISE). 1 (4): 327-338.
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(2019) “‘I Find Comfort Here’: Rohingya Women and Taleems in Bangladesh’s Refugee Camps.” Journal of Refugee Studies. 34(1): 874-889. [Published Online First: July 2019]
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(2018) “Narratives of Agency: Women, Islam, and the Politics of Economic Participation in Afghanistan.” Journal of International Women’s Studies. 19(3): 60-70.
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(2018) “The Merits and Limits of a Gendered Epistemology: Muslim Women and the Politics of Knowledge Production.” Journal of International Women’s Studies. 19(1): 20-33. [Shortlisted in the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association, UK & Ireland, ‘2017 Student Essay Competition’]
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(2017) “Farkhunda’s Legacy: Gender, Identity, and Shifting Societal Narratives in Afghanistan.” Feminist Review. 117(1): 178-185.
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(2017) “Rights, Roles, and Rural Realities: A Case Study on the Effects of Fatwa Decrees Against Women in Rural Bangladesh.” Muslim World Journal of Human Rights. 14(1): 1-27. [Special Issue on ‘Gender and Islam’]
Book Chapters in Edited Volumes
- (2024) “Women’s Worlds: Vignettes and Memories of Afghanistan.” In: Choudhury, N. and Schmeding, A. (eds.), Frontier Ethnographies: Deconstructing Research Experiences in Afghanistan and Pakistan. New York: Berghahn.
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(2022) ““I Am Not Alone”: Rohingya Women Negotiating Home and Belonging in Bangladesh’s Refugee Camps.” In: Mayer, T. and Tran, T. (eds.), Displacement, Belonging, and Migrant Agency in the Face of Power. New York: Routledge. [co-authored with Nafay Choudhury]
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(2021) “Survival as Resistance: Rohingya Refugee Women’s Narratives of Life, Loss, and Hope.” In: Bonnerjee, S. (ed.), Subaltern Women’s Narratives: Strident Voices, Dissenting Bodies. London: Routledge.
Commissioned Research Papers & Policy Reports
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(2022) Assessing Gender, Power, and NGO Programming in Bangladesh’s Rohingya Refugee Camps. Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies, University of Auckland.
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(2020) “Trajectories of Gender Inequality, Identity, and Violent Extremism in Rural Bangladesh.” In: Conflicting Identities: The Nexus Between Masculinities, Femininities and Violent Extremism in Asia. UN Women and UNDP.
Teaching and Supervisions
Farhana created and taught the "Gender and Forced Migration" course for the MPhil in Politics and International Studies in Michaelmas 2023.
Farhana is a dissertation supervisor for students in the MPhil in Politics and International Studies and the MPhil in Development Studies.