Background

Mwenza is a biosocial medical anthropologist. She has worked on a range of projects using qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate health, reproduction, and technology in the UK, the Nordic region, Latin America, South Asia, and East Africa. Her research draws from in-depth ethnography to examine intransigent and often invisible structures of injustice. 

Mwenza is a Researcher Education and Development Fellow with the RED team in School X, contributing to postgraduate training for students across the HaSS Faculty. She specialises in ethnography, mixed-methods research, interviews, questionnaire design, Black feminist approaches to research, and collaborative cross/inter/multi-disciplinary research.  

Research

My current projects include:

• Kone Foundation-funded 'Technology, Ethics and Reproduction: Controversy in the Era of Normalisation'
• Economic and Social Research Council-funded 'What is 'Equivalence' in Police Custody Healthcare?'
• Office for Students-funded Pro:NE (Postgraduate Research Opportunities in the North East: Network for Equity)
• Open Society Foundation-funded Edtech, race, and digital exclusion (with Data, Tech, and Black Communities)
• Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust-funded Criminalising Distress (with Medact)

Publications

• Articles

  • Blell M, Liu S-JS, Verma A. Working in unprecedented times: Intersectionality and women of color in UK higher education in and beyond the pandemic. Gender, Work and Organization 2023, 30(2), 353-372.
  • Blell M. On the Shoulders of Giants Or the Back of a Mule: Awareness of Multiplicity In Citational Politics. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 2023, 37(3), 211-216.
  • Blell Mwenza, Homanen Riikka. Justice reproductive en Finlande ? Le mythe de l’homogénéité dans une social-démocratie nordique. Travail, genre et sociétés 2023, 50(2), 79-95.
  • Sudenkaarne T, Blell M. Reproductive justice for the haunted Nordic welfare state: Race, racism, and queer bioethics in Finland. Bioethics 2022, 36(3), 328-335.
  • Blell M, Liu S-JS, Verma A. 'A one-sided view of the world': women of colour at the intersections of academic freedom. International Journal of Human Rights 2022, 26(10), 1822–1841.
  • Keyes O, Hitzig Z, Blell M. Truth from the machine: artificial intelligence and the materialization of identity. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 2021, 46(1-2), 158-175.
  • Murtagh MJ, Machirori M, Gaff CL, Blell MT, de Vries J, Doerr M, Dove ES, Duncanson A, Hastings Ward J, Hendricks-Sturrup R, Ho CWL, Johns A, Joly Y, Kato K, Katsui K, Kumuthini J, Maleady-Crowe F, Middleton A, Milne R, Minion JT, Matshaba M, Mulrine S, Patch C, Ryan R, Viney W. Engaged genomic science produces better and fairer outcomes: an engagement framework for engaging and involving participants, patients and publics in genomics research and healthcare implementation. Wellcome Open Research 2021, 6, 311.
  • Mulrine S, Blell MT, Murtagh MJ. Beyond trust: Amplifying unheard voices on concerns about harm resulting from health data-sharing. Medicine Access @ Point of Care 2021, 5, 1-11.
  • Toorabally N, Mercer CH, Mitchell KR, Blell M, Burns F, Gilson R, McGregor-Read J, Allan S, De Ruiter A, Dhairyawan R, Fox J. Association of HIV status with sexual function in women aged 45–60 in England: results from two national surveys. AIDS Care 2020, 32(3), 296-295.
  • Blell M, Hunter MA. Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing's Red Herring: “Genetic Ancestry” and Personalized Medicine. Frontiers in Medicine 2019, 6, 48.
  • Blell M. British Pakistani Muslim Masculinity, (In)fertility, and the Clinical Encounter. Medical Anthropology 2018, 37(2), 117-130.
  • Murtagh MJ, Blell MT, Butters OW, Cowley L, Dove ES, Goodman A, Griggs RL, Hall A, Hallowell N, Kumari M, Mangino M, Maughan B, Mills MC, Minion JT, Murphy T, Prior G, Suderman M, Ring SM, Rogers NT, Roberts SJ, Van der Straeten C, Viney W, Wiltshire D, Wong A, Walker N, Burton PR. Better governance, better access: practising responsible data sharing in the METADAC governance infrastructure. Human Genomics 2018, 12, 24.
  • Murtagh MJ, Minion JT, Turner A, Wilson RC, Blell M, Ochieng C, Murtagh B, Roberts S, Butters OW, Burton PR. The ECOUTER methodology for stakeholder engagement in translational research. BMC Medical Ethics 2017, 18(1), 24.
  • Blell MT. Menopausal symptoms among British Pakistani women: a critique of the standard checklist approach. Menopause 2015, 22(1), 79-87.
  • Weston G, Lawson JF, Blell M, Hayton J. Anthropologists in Films: “The Horror! The Horror!”. American Anthropologist 2015, 117(2), 316-328.
  • Hampshire K, Iqbal N, Blell M, Simpson B. The interview as narrative ethnography: seeking and shaping connections in qualitative research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 2014, 17(3), 215-231.
  • Blell M, Pollard TM, Pearce MS. Predictors of age at menarche in the Newcastle thousand families study. Journal of Biosocial Science 2008, 40(4), 563-575.
  • Cooper R, Blell M, Hardy R, Black S, Pollard TM, Wadsworth MEG, Pearce MS, Kuh D. Validity of age at menarche self-reported in adulthood. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2006, 60(11), 993-997.

• Book Chapters

  • Blell M, Homanen R. Haunted Data “Goldmine”: Repropolitical Anxieties and Injustice in Finland. In: Franklin SB; Inhorn MC, ed. The New Reproductive Order: Changing In-Fertilities across the Globe. New York: NYU Press, 2025. In Press.
  • Blell M, McLellan J, Pettigrew R, Sperlinger T. ‘Can We Think about How to Improve the World?': Designing Curricula with Refugee Students. In: Cantat, Celine; Kumar Rajaram, Prem; Cook, Ian, ed. Opening Up the University: Teaching and Learning with Refugees. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2022, pp.111-122.
  • Simpson B, Blell M, Hampshire K. Moral Pioneers: Pakistani Muslims and the take-up of assisted reproductive technologies in the North of England. In: Simpson B, Hampshire K, ed. Assisted Reproductive Technologies in the Third Phase: Global Encounters and Emerging Moral Worlds. London: Berghahn Books, 2015. In Preparation.

• Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)

  • Pearce MS, Pollard TM, McLean L, Kaye B, Blell MT, Parker L. Birth weight as a predictor of breast tissue density. In: 4th World Congress on Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD). 2006, Educatorium, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands: ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD.

• Reviews

  • Vears DF, Minion JT, Roberts SJ, Cummings J, Machirori M, Blell M, Budin-Ljosne I, Cowley L, Dyke SOM, Gaff C, Green R, Hall A, Johns AL, Knoppers BM, Mulrine S, Patch C, Winkler E, Murtagh MJ. Return of individual research results from genomic research: A systematic review of stakeholder perspectives. PLoS ONE 2021, 16(11), e0258646.
  • Porter G, Hampshire K, Dunn C, Hall R, Levesley M, Burton K, Robson S, Abane A, Blell M, Panther J. Health impacts of pedestrian head-loading: A review of the evidence with particular reference to women and children in sub-Saharan Africa. Social Science and Medicine 2013, 88, 90-97.