March Winner - Yasaman S. Munro

Congratulations to Yasaman S. Munro, one of our March researchers!

Yasaman S. Munro is currently a doctoral candidate in the Wilfrid Laurier University-University of Waterloo joint program in Religious Diversity in North America.

Her SSHRC-funded research focuses on Ayurveda and associated South Asian medical traditions among Hindu South Asians now living in the Waterloo Region of Canada, many of whom are involved with the two major Hindu temples in this area.

Recognizing the importance of relational networks and material culture, Yasaman asks interviewees to walk her through their everyday health practices and beliefs in domestic and religious spaces, and she traces and photographs the Ayurvedic materials people use for well-being. Her research has taken her to India where interviewees buy their Ayurvedic medicines and go for treatments at Ayurvedic hospitals and religious sites.

More broadly, Yasaman examines how religion and social identity are linked with the ways that people respond to sickness, aging and death.