Overview
As a medical anthropologist, I am interested in the dynamic relations between medicine and everyday social and political life. My work is primarily based in urban India, and I also conduct research in the US.
My most recent work is a book project, entitled Lifelines: The Traffic of Trauma (Duke University Press, 2022). Lifelines is an ethnographic study of road and railway injuries and of trauma surgery. Its aim is to understand injury and movement as problems that must be thought together, and …
Current Appointments & Affiliations
Sally Dalton Robinson Professor
·
2024 - Present
Cultural Anthropology,
Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Professor of Cultural Anthropology
·
2024 - Present
Cultural Anthropology,
Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Professor in Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies
·
2024 - Present
Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies,
Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Research Professor of Global Health
·
2024 - Present
Duke Global Health Institute,
University Institutes and Centers
Associate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society
·
2015 - Present
Duke Science & Society,
University Initiatives & Academic Support Units
Faculty Associate in the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, & History of Medicine
·
2023 - Present
Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine,
Institutes and Centers
Recent Publications
Stable condition: Traumatic injury, coma, and vital traffic in a Mumbai hospital ward
Journal Article American Anthropologist · June 1, 2023 Based on five years of research in a public-hospital trauma ward in Mumbai, this article examines the fraught case study of comatose states that result from traffic-accident injuries. It focuses on a relationship between two brothers, one injured in a moto ... Full text Open Access CiteDistressed Work: Chronic Imperatives and Distress in Covid-19 Critical Care.
Journal Article Hastings Cent Rep · January 2023 This ethnographic study introduces the term "distressed work" to describe the emergence of chronic frictions between moral imperatives for health care workers to keep working and the dramatic increase in distress during the Covid-19 pandemic. Interviews an ... Full text Open Access Link to item CiteThe pandemic is not the great equalizer: front-line labor and rationing in COVID-19 critical care.
Journal Article Public Health Action · December 21, 2022 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Framed as "the great-equalizer," the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified pressure to adapt critical care labor and resulted in rationing by healthcare workers across the world. OBJECTIVE: To critically investigate how hospital intensive care unit ... Full text Open Access Link to item CiteRecent Grants
Doctoral Dissertation Research: Arrow Dreams: Gambling Depedencies in Northeast India
Inst. Training Prgm or CMEPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2025 - 2026Kern Foundation (KEEN) Annual Supplement 2023
ResearchCo Investigator · Awarded by Kern Family Foundation · 2020 - 2025RAPID: Healthcare Workforce Resilience in the Time of Covid-19
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2020 - 2022View All Grants
Education, Training & Certifications
Brown University ·
2011
Ph.D.