Dr. Samina Luthfa

Samina Luthfa, DPhil (Oxford), a professor of sociology at the University of Dhaka is an activist researcher too. She works on environmental justice movement, political ecology, feminism and media. She wrote books, book chapters and articles on indigeneity, environmental justice movement, female apparel workers, theatre artists, Mandi peasants and so on. She coauthored a book Vulnerable Empowerment: Capabilities and Vulnerabilities of Female Garment Workers of Bangladesh (2016) and co-edited The Bangladesh Environmental Humanities Reader (2022).

She recently completed her work as a senior research fellow at the Center for Entrepreneurship Development at BRAC University for a multi-country, multi-university research project on climate change and apparel industry in Bangladesh and is currently working on slow fashion, tiger widows and their climate change adaptations and fish production value chains, labour rights in the apparel industry, and environmental and political protests in South Asia.

She also worked as the gender advisor in a multidisciplinary research project on food safety in fish and chicken value chains in Bangladesh (2021-2024) and as Athena Swan Gender Researcher/ Consultant (2012-2013) in the University of Oxford and taught sociology at the Bangladesh Agricultural University and Independent University, Bangladesh.

She is a theatre artist and playwright. She is one of the founder members of a leading theatre troupe of Dhaka – BotTala. As an activist, she works with labour rights organizations, environmental justice organizations, women’s rights activists, theatre activists and university teachers’ organizations.

As a cultural activist, environmental, gender-based, or identity-related activism and research have been intertwined in her plays and acting projects. Her research projects also have creative twists.

https://univdhaka.academia.edu/SaminaLuthfa

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Samina_Luthfa

https://saminaluthfa.com/