# Hannah Ali

**Source**: https://anthropology.cornell.edu/hannah-ali
**Parent**: https://anthropology.cornell.edu/anthro-grad-students

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- [Research](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/research)

  - [Anthropology Faculty: Recent Books](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/faculty-books)
  - [Freedman Award Information](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/freedman-award-application-information)
  - [More Books by Anthropology Faculty](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/more-books-anthropology-faculty)
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- [About Us](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/about)

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  - [Department History](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/department-history)
  - [Student Groups](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/student-groups)

### 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.