Girish Daswani

My research since 2004 has been is in Ghana and includes topics such as religion, ethics, transnationalism, corruption and activism. My most recent scholarly work has been exploring different activist and religious responses to corruption in Ghana. For several years, I have taught an undergraduate course called “Anthropology of Transnationalism” and made the question of “Home” a central theme that runs through it; explored through concepts such as colonialism, nationalism, migration and neoliberalism.

Given that students spend several years at university, I have been interested in how University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) students experience and reflect on the University as a home: a place of hope, diversity and friendship, but also filled with anxiety, private investments, bureaucracy and internal divisions. In my transnationalism class I have started working with UTSC undergraduates on ethnographic projects that explore the dissonance between how UTSC is branded for “diversity” and the experience of being in a place.