Helena Zeweri

Helena Zeweri is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Faculty of Arts. Her academic work bridges socio-cultural anthropology with critical refugee studies, migration policy, and the anthropology of empire and settler colonialism. She specializes in examining how border regimes operate across multiple sites and temporalities, with particular attention to Australia and the United States.

Her research interests focus on the spaces where border control logics unfold—from social welfare systems to war zones to asylum sites—with special attention to the Afghan diaspora. Zeweri's work critically examines the relationship between empire, settler colonialism, and borders through ethnographic and historical methods. Her first book, Between Care and Criminality: Marriage, Citizenship, and Family in Australian Social Welfare (2023, Rutgers University Press), investigates how forced marriage prevention policies operate within Muslim migrant communities in Australia.

Zeweri's scholarly output reveals consistent engagement with themes of migration deterrence, border imperialism, and the social effects of extraterritorial border regimes. Her work demonstrates how border enforcement extends beyond territorial boundaries to shape migrant desires, self-conceptions, and social relations in origin countries and after arrival. She particularly examines how these processes affect Afghan communities across transnational contexts.

• 2023 UBC Hampton New Faculty Research Grant
• 2023 Social Science and Humanities Research Council Insight Development Grant
• 2023 Australian Anthropology Society Engaged Anthropology Prize
• 2021 Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Fieldwork Grant (University of Virginia)
• Multiple dissertation fellowships from Rice University and the Wenner-Gren Foundation

Zeweri previously served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia's Global Studies Program before joining UBC. She teaches courses on culture, power, and politics; diasporic belonging; ethnographies of Australia; and the relationship between empire and migration. Her teaching and research reflect a commitment to centering migrant community voices in policy development and academic research.