Dr. Ahmed Afzal

Biography

Ahmed Afzal is Associate Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Fullerton. He received his doctorate from Yale University in Cultural Anthropology, a master's degree in Cultural Geography from the London School of Economics, University of London, and his bachelor's degree from Vassar College in Third World Studies (Independent Major). Afzal is a past recipient of fellowships and research grants from the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, Yale Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, the Border-Crossing Initiative of the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Junior/Senior Faculty Intramural Grant at California State University, Fullerton. His has published in American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, American Studies Journal, Amerasia Journal, City and Society, Development: Journal of the Society for International Development, Journal of American History, Journal of Language and Sexuality, and Urban Anthropology. His scholarship has been published in several peer-reviewed edited volumes, notably, Asian Families in Canada and the United States: Implications for Mental Health and Well-being (Springer Press), Gender, Sexuality, Decolonization: South Asia in the World Perspective (Routledge Press), Global Asian American Popular Cultures (New York University Press), Cultural Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Asia (University of Hawai’i Press), Shifting Positionalities: The Local and Global Geopolitics of Surveillance and Policy (Cambridge Scholars Press) and Culture & the Condom (Peter Lang Press). Selections from his work-in-progress, Tales from Grindr: Emerging Queer Communities, New Media Technologies, and Negotiations of Transnational Belonging in Global Pakistan have appeared as a chapter titled “Beyond Hooking Up: Tales from Grindr in Pakistan”, in a peer-reviewed edited volume, Pakistan Desires: Queer Futures Elsewhere (Duke University Press, 2023), and as a peer-reviewed article titled “Predators, Scammers, Fakers: Negotiating the Risks and Perils of Grindr in Global Pakistan,” in Sexualities (July 2025). Selections from his second research project centered on representations of Pakistani Americans in Pakistani Urdu-language drama series and Pakistani cinema, Indian cinema, and Hollywood cinema and televisions are currently under preparation for submission consideration in South Asian Popular Culture and Journal of Asian American Studies.

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