Kira Schmidt Stiedenroth was born and grew up in Chile. She moved to Germany in 2003 in order to first learn German and then pursue higher education. In 2008 she completed her B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and Modern South Asian Languages and Literature (Urdu) and in 2010 her M.A. in Health and Society in South Asia from Heidelberg University. She has conducted fieldwork for an indigenous people’s rights NGO in Chile (2006) and for the NGO All Pakistan Women’s Association in Pakistan (2007-2008). She has also carried research fieldwork in 2009 (Pakistan) and 2012 (India). Her master’s thesis discussed how childless Baloch women experienced and dealt with infertility in a slum area of Karachi. After graduating from MAHASSA, Kira joined the International Committee of the Red Cross as an Urdu interpreter in India and Pakistan (2010-2011). Since October 2011 she works at the Department of Oriental and Islamic Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum, as a research associate attached to the DFG-funded project entitled „Medical Knowledge and Plural Culture: Graeco-Islamic Medicine (tibb-e yunani, Unani Medicine) and its Representations in South Asia.“ Kira is currently working on her PhD thesis about the practices and institutions of unani medicine in contemporary India.
