Girish Daswani

Girish Daswani is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. His research bridges Sociocultural Anthropology and African Studies, focusing on Religion, Diaspora, Morality, and Activism in Ghana and transnational contexts.

Education:

• Ph.D., London School of Economics, 2007

Daswani’s recent work examines political corruption and activist responses in Ghana, blending artistic and ethnographic methods. His anthropology of ethics explores how born-again Christians navigate moral subjectivity in both personal and collective spheres.

Key Publications include his monograph Looking Back, Moving Forward (2015), which analyzes ethical practice in Ghanaian Pentecostalism, and his co-edited special section on anthropology of personhood (2015). His 2015 book was a Canada Prize in Social Sciences Finalist.

Public Engagement spans TedxUTSC talks, the blog Everyday Orientalism, and AfricaProactive. He co-developed the course Constructing the Other: Orientalism through Time and Place, integrating anti-colonial pedagogy and decolonial readings by nonwhite and indigenous scholars.

Graduate Student Advisee:

• Nicholas Howe Bukowski