Michelle Munyikwa is an MD/PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her current research explores the intersection of care and governance in Philadelphia through the lens of displacement, beginning with an ethnographic study of refugees and the institutions that serve them. She analyzes Philadelphia as a place formed through migration and displacement, from successive refugee migrations beginning in the 20th century to other movements, like the Great Migration, that have shaped demographic patterns and social life in the City of Brotherly Love. Drawing from a large, diverse archive that brings news, personal narratives, oral histories, and cultural representations into conversation with semi-structured interviews and ethnographic participant-observation at multiple sites, her work strives to understand what making refuge looks like and for whom true asylum is possible.
