Pnina Werbner

Pnina Werbner ( Gluckman/Gillon; 3 December 1944 – 17 January 2023) was a British social anthropologist. Her work focused on Sufi mysticism, diasporas, Muslim women and public sector unions in Botswana. She wrote extensively about the Arab Spring. Werbner was married to anthropologist Richard Werbner, and was the niece of Max Gluckman.

Werbner completed a PhD in social anthropology at the University of Manchester in 1976. She joined the University of Keele as a senior lecturer in 1997, and was promoted to a full professorship in 2001. After retiring, she maintained honorary status as professor emerita, while continuing to research and publish until her death in 2023. She saw the materiality of diaspora as manifested both affectively and aesthetically, with its members willing to mobilize politically and economically across borders in response to the sufferings of fellow diaspora members or crises in the 'home' country.