Overview
Hannah Ali is a PhD candidate in Medical and Socio-Cultural Anthropology at Cornell University. Her master’s research explored how Somali Canadian families in Toronto respond to health and social challenges through community-based care and Indigenous laws (Xeer). Building on this foundation, her doctoral project employs street-based ethnography to examine how Somali Canadians navigate Toronto’s ongoing drug toxicity crisis.
Her broader research interests include art-based and play-based methodologies, street ethnography, psychoanalysis, community care, and constructions of health within diasporas in North America.
Before beginning her doctoral studies at Cornell, Hannah earned a double master’s degree from York University, where she conducted a discursive psychoanalytic analysis of Somali literary fiction and an ethnography on the ethical lives of Somali families. She also holds a B.A. from the University of British Columbia (UBC).
Hannah’s academic work is deeply informed by her professional experience in Toronto’s shelter system, where she has worked as a community support worker, overnight assistant manager, and part-time program supervisor.