About Me

Salwa Tareen is a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at Boston University. She holds a B.A. from Kalamazoo College and an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School. Salwa’s research broadly explores the interplay between religion, ethics, and the politics of care in urban South Asia. In addition to her academic work, Salwa is an arts organizer, poet, and essayist.

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Her dissertation, “Of the City and the Soul: Urban Disaster and Dissident Ethics in Karachi,” examines how residents utilize charitable giving to address the challenges of their urban environment. The project explores how residents of one of the world’s megacities and arguably its largest Muslim city, utilize charitable giving to address everyday disasters of infrastructure and governance. In the absence of formal avenues of grievance and redress, charitable organizations and individuals provide a vital safety net for Karachiites, as well as a platform for their indignation. Charitable workers across the city repair roads, clear garbage heaps, drain sewage, and provide rescue services through mechanisms of religious giving. Building upon 21-months of ethnographic fieldwork, the project considers the material and ethical dimensions of such giving as a means to care for one another and the city itself.​