PhD Candidate Sociocultural Anthropology
she/her/hers
Graduated Summer 2022
Research Interests
Ghana, West Africa, Zongo, belonging, mobility, place
Website
About
Emily Williamson Ibrahim is a PhD student in anthropology at Boston University. Her current research focuses on questions of belonging, mobility, and strangerhood among “zongos,” the name used to describe predominantly Muslim urban settlements in Ghana, West Africa. Emily holds a Master of Science in Architectural Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Virginia (UVA), and an undergraduate degree in Art History from Colby College. Emily has also worked as an architect in Washington, DC, collaborated on cultural heritage projects in Ghana, Peru, and Haiti, has taught at Landscape Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, and is a co-founder of the nonprofit organization called the “Zongo Story Project” (www.zongostoryproject.com) in which she works with students in Ghana to write, illustrate, and tell stories.
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Most recently, as a graduate student in anthropology at Boston University, she has become proficient in the Hausa language and recently completed her ethnographic fieldwork (2018-2020) in Ghana. A few of Emily’s publications include: a Review of Swahili Port Cities: The Architecture of Elsewhere, by Prita Meier (H-AMCA: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, 2017); “Understanding the Zongo: socio-spatial processes of marginalization in Ghana.” (The African Metropolis edited by Toyin Falola and Bisola Falola, 2017), and “Zongo: Water Infrastructure and Public Life” (University of Chicago Art Journal, 2010).
Awards
- Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant (2018-2020)
- Muslim Studies Fellowship, Boston University
- Hariri Institute, Digital Software Development Grant, Boston University
- Colloquium Fellow, Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA)
- Long-Term Graduate Research Abroad Fellowship (GRAF), Boston University
- Foreign Language and Area Studies Summer Fellowship (FLAS), Boston University
- Foreign Language and Area Studies Annual Fellowship (FLAS), Boston University
- Best Children’s Book for Young Readers, Children’s Africana Book Award
Publications
- Review of Swahili Port Cities: The Architecture of Elsewhere, by Prita Meier. H-AMCA: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, 2017. (peer-reviewed)
- “Understanding the Zongo: socio-spatial processes of marginalization in Ghana.” In The African Metropolis: Struggles Over Urban Space, Citizenship, and Rights to the City, edited by Toyin Falola and Bisola Falola. New York: Routledge Press, 2017. (peer-reviewed)
- “Reflections on ‘Gizo-Gizo: A Tale from the Zongo Lagoon’.”African Studies Center Newsletter, July 2017, Boston University, African Studies Center.
- Gizo-Gizo: A Tale from the Zongo Lagoon. Accra, Ghana: Sub-Saharan Publishers, 2016.