Marwa Ghazali

Dr. Marwa Ghazali is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Houston's College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on cultural and medical anthropology, African Diaspora studies, and Muslim American studies. Dr. Ghazali has held the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Fellowship at Harvard University's Hutchins Center. Her work examines migration, structural oppression, urban precarity, and the politics of death and dying. She employs ethnographic and archival methods to study marginalized communities in Africa, the Middle East, and the U.S.

Her current book project, City of Living-Death, explores Egyptian tomb-dwelling communities in Cairo’s necropolis and their displacement due to urban development. This research highlights necropolitics, gentrification, and social justice. She also studies Afrodiasporic Muslims in the U.S., analyzing immigration policies and their impact on health, family, and mortality. Dr. Ghazali extends her research to Houston, investigating its Afrodiasporic Muslim communities.

• Education: Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Kansas, Kansas

Her research interests bridge Black feminist, decolonial, and critical race theories. She explores how marginalized groups navigate structural violence through creative agency and social networks. Her work has been featured on NPR/KCUR Public Radio.

• Awards: W.E.B. Du Bois Research Fellowship (Harvard University)

Dr. Ghazali has advised students across multiple disciplines and served as Ethnographic Research Coordinator at the Kansas African Studies Center. She is an Editorial Board Member of the Sage Handbook of Cultural Anthropology and serves on the Board of Directors for the Uplift Institute. Her teaching spans anthropology, African studies, and Arabic studies in the U.S., Africa, and Europe.