About

Cawo Abdi is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts, with a focus on race, indigeneity, disability, gender, and sexuality studies. Her educational background includes a PhD in Sociology from the University of Sussex, an MA in Sociology from the University of Guelph, and a BSocSc in Economics from the University of Ottawa. Her research examines migration, gender, race, and class, with particular attention to Somali diaspora communities, Muslim identities, and refugee experiences. She has contributed to understanding the educational attainment and school choices of new migrants, especially refugee and migrant groups in Minnesota, and how ethnocentric charter schools influence their long-term settlement and integration in the United States. Her work also explores issues related to refugees, statelessness, and belonging in the context of global migration and conflict.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Gender studies
• Demography
• Medicine
• Biology
• Criminology
• Family medicine
• Demographic economics
• Law
• Nursing
• Clinical psychology
• Economics

Selected publications

• The 10-Step Cross-cultural Equivalence Process for Developing Measures for Culturally Informed Research

  Journal of Participatory Research Methods · 2025-12-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  We describe a comprehensive ten step process for choosing and adapting existing scales or questionnaires to the Somali language for the Our Body Our Health (OBOH) study. The OBOH study aims to examine sexual pain, coping with pain, sexual health, and decision-making in a sample of Somali women living in the United States and have experienced female genital cutting (FGC). We describe how we used existing guidelines for construct equivalence, semantic equivalence, technical equivalence and translation, while also expanding on these guidelines by engaging community members through a variety of mechanisms. We also used an iterative process where decisions were made, refined, and sometimes overturned as we gathered more community driven feedback. Through this process we adapted 11 scales, created three questionnaires, and translated all. We considered five other scales and describe the reasons we did not use them for the final survey. Finally, we present lessons learned and recommendations for other researchers.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Discerning Deinfibulation: Impact of Personal, Professional, and Familial Influences on Decision-Making

  Qualitative Health Research · 2024 · 6 citations

  • Political Science
  • Nursing
  • Medicine

  The past decades have seen large numbers of Somali women migrate across the globe. It is critical for healthcare workers in host countries to understand healthcare needs of Somali women. The majority of Somali female migrants experience female genital cutting (FGC). The most common type in Somalia is Type 3 or infibulation, the narrowing of the vaginal introitus. Deinfibulation opens the introitus to reduce poor health outcomes and/or allow for vaginal births. In this study, we explored the perspectives of Somali women living in the United States about deinfibulation. We recruited 75 Somali women who had experienced FGC through community-based participatory research methods. Bilingual community researchers conducted qualitative interviews in Somali or English. University faculty and community-based researchers coded data together in a participatory-analysis process. We identified four themes. (1) Personal Views: participants reported positive attitudes toward deinfibulation and varied on the appropriateness of deinfibulation before marriage. (2) Benefits: identified benefits included alleviation of health problems; improved sexual health, in particular reduction or prevention of sexual pain; and reclamation of body and womanhood. (3) Barriers: these included associated stigma and lack of knowledge by providers. (4) Decision-Making: most reported that husbands, healthcare providers, and elder female community members may provide advice about if and/or when to seek deinfibulation, though some felt deinfibulation decisions are solely up to the impacted woman. An ecological framework is used to frame the findings and identify the importance of healthcare workers in assisting women who have been infibulated make decisions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cultural Norm Transmission/Disruption amongst Somali Refugee Women: The Beauty and Privilege of Intergenerational Relationships

  Social Sciences · 2024-08-21 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Since the onset of the Somali civil war in the late 1980s, more than 2 million Somalis have been internally displaced or crossed international borders to seek haven. Yet, research on diasporic Somali women's intergenerational communication about marriage, sex, and female genital cutting (FGC) remains scant. This paper draws from data we collected from 15 women over the age of 45 who were part of a much larger project on refugee women and sexual health and well-being. The analysis centers on how Somali women across the generations recalibrate definitions of family. We analyze the new roles that sisters, aunts, and grandmothers occupy in the lives of younger women, as family dispersal often results in the absence of biological mothers. In the new settlement, the findings showcase both continuity and change in how sex, marriage, and female genital cutting (FGC) are discussed among female family members. Our findings support not only the dynamic nature of family roles that women occupy across generations but also the malleability of cultural practices as families navigate changing cultural, legal, and social norms in their new settlements.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Our Body Our Health (Jirkeena, Caafimaadkeena): Somali Women’s Narratives on Sexual Health

  The Journal of Sex Research · 2023 · 6 citations

  • Sociology
  • Psychology
  • Gender studies

  Women across the globe have been subject to female genital cutting (FGC), with the highest rates in Somalia. FGC can result in sexual concerns, especially sexual pain and lower pleasure. Due to ongoing civil war and climate disasters, there is a large number of Somali immigrants and refugees living in countries where healthcare providers may be unfamiliar with the impact of FGC. In this qualitative study, sixty Somali women between the ages 20 and 45 and living in the U.S. shared their perspectives on how FGC has affected their sexual lives, including how they have coped with any complications attributed to FGC. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling and interviewed by a bilingual community researcher in either Somali or English. Data were analyzed through a participatory analysis process by academic and community researchers. Themes included sexual desire, arousal, and pleasure; sexual satisfaction; sexual pain at first intercourse; coping with sexual pain at first intercourse; long-term sexual pain, coping with long-term sexual pain. Results are discussed with a focus on agency of the participants, role of partners, and implications for healthcare professionals.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Marriage, Gender and Refugee Migration: Spousal Relationships among Somali Muslims in the United Kingdom

  Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews · 2022 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Gender studies
  PublisherDOI

• <i>Refuge beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers</i>. By David Scott FitzGerald. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. x+359. $34.95.

  American Journal of Sociology · 2020-07-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Condemned to a protracted limbo?

  2019-05-08

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Building on the literature on statelessness and on refugees, this chapter brings to the fore discussions anchored on conventions drafted at the end of World War II into contemporary reality of global protracted conflicts. We put forth theoretical and policy proposals that reflect the urgent humanitarian imperative to reconceptualize our understanding of displaced peoples and of our treatment of refugees and the stateless, whose relationship to the nation-state model is represented by exclusion, persecution and precarity. We suggest that immigration policies and humanitarian interventions from more prosperous regions of the globe should reflect the new landscape of the stateless, which includes both those who have no nation to call their own, but also those whose nation-state of birth is in protracted disarray, with the nation-state merely existing in name. The latter, we argue, hold a nationality that is at best nominal as these war-torn countries guarantee none of the rights that we associate with nationality or citizenship. We hope this chapter opens up more dialogue into the highly stringent legal barriers refugees and the stateless confront in their search for asylum to access civil, social and political rights, the basic dignity denied them in their places of birth.

  PublisherDOI

• Exile, Memory, and Welcoming the Stranger: Panel Presentation

  2018-01-01

  articleSenior author
  Publisher

• The Newest African-Americans?: Somali Struggles for Belonging

  International perspectives on migration · 2018-10-24 · 23 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Somali American female refugees discuss their attitudes toward homosexuality and the gay and lesbian community

  Culture Health & Sexuality · 2017-08-31 · 12 citations

  article

  Minnesota is home to the largest population of Somalis in the USA - most arriving as refugees from the civil war in Somalia. As Somali Americans adjust to life in the USA, they are likely to undergo shifts in their belief systems - including changes in their attitudes toward gays and lesbians. We examined the attitudes of 29 Somali American women in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area toward homosexuality via face-to-face, semi-structured interviews. Transcripts were translated, transcribed and analysed using an approach informed by grounded theory. Three major themes were identified: (1) Islamic prohibitions against homosexuality; (2) homosexuals exiled to a hidden community; and (3) community members exploring tolerance. Participants' attitudes toward homosexuality were heavily influenced by religious doctrines and cultural contexts. This is the first known study in the USA of Somali American attitudes toward gays and lesbians. As people mass migrate from nations with negative attitudes toward homosexuality to countries with more progressive attitudes toward varied sexual orientations, refugee attitudes about homosexuality will undergo change. Through research and education, we can better understand how to increase tolerance toward and opportunities for visibility among gay and lesbian refugees throughout the diaspora.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Jennifer J. Connor

  University of Minnesota

  5 shared

• Blaire MacHarg

  4 shared

• Marco Tavanti

  4 shared

• Shannon Pergament

  3 shared

• Intisar Hussein

  3 shared

• Foos Afey

  3 shared

• Beatrice E. Robinson

  University of Minnesota

  3 shared

• Amanda Ciesinski

  Concordia University

  2 shared

Awards & honors

• Fulbright Research Fellowship to South Africa (2012 - 2013)