• University of Edinburgh
• School of Social and Political Studies

Sociology

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Qualifications

• PhD, Bristol University
• MPhil, Delhi School of Economics

Main Research Interests

• Biomedicine (In Local/Global Perspective),
• Biotechnologies (Embryonic Stem Cells/Molecular Genetics) Reproductive Health and Technologies (Medically Managed Birth/New Reproductive Technologies),
• Area Study (South Asia/India),
• Ethnographic Research Design and Methodology.

Biographical Statement

My academic and research interests are focused on the burgeoning rise of bioscience and biotechnologies in India. My research covers two major contemporary developments in the domain of bioscience in India, namely Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Human Embryonic Stem Cells. Through my work I am examining the emerging face of India’s new “bioeconomy”. In particular my research focuses on: (a) mapping transnational connections linking patients, research laboratories and clinics (b) understanding national/local scientific contexts (c) moral and ethical debates in India and beyond (d) global governance and local regulation of new biotechnologies.

Current Research Projects

My current research examines the proliferation of embryonic stem cell technologies in India. The project uncovers transnational complexities in research on biogenetic materials such as human gametes and embryos in the broader context of emerging governance frameworks in India.

Publications

Books

Conceptions: Infertility and Procreative Modernity in India. Berghahn Books, 2012. 

Local Cells, Global Science: The Proliferation of Stem Cell Technologies in India, Routledge, 2009. (lead authored with Glasner, P). ISBN: HB 0415396093

Risky Relations: Family, Kinship and the New Genetics, Berg, 2005 (coauthored with Featherstone, K, Atkinson, P and Clarke, A). ISBN: HB 1 84520 178 7/ PB 1 84520 179 5

Journal Articles

Guest Editor, Introduction for the Special Issue of Culture Medicine and Psychiatry, Sacred Conceptions: Religion in the Global Practice of IVF', 2006

Clinical Theodicies: The Enchanted World of Uncertain Science and Clinical Conception in India' in Culture Medicine and Psychiatry special issue Sacred Conceptions: Religion in the Global Practice of IVF', 2006.

Why Adoption is not an Option in India: The Visibility of Infertility, the Secrecy of Donor Insemination, and other Cultural Complexities', Social Science and Medicine, 2003, Vol. 56, pp.1867-1880.

Uncertain Risk: Genetic Screening for Susceptibility of Haemochromatosis', Health Risk and Society, 2002, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp.227-240.

How Some Indian Baby Makers are Made: Media Narratives and Assisted Conception in India', Anthropology and Medicine, 2000. Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.63-78.

Refereed Book Chapters

The Other Mother: Supplementary Wombs, Surrogate State and ARTs in India. In Knecht, M Klotz, M and Beck, S (eds.). Reproductive Technologies as Global Form: Ethnographies of Knowledge, Practice, and Transnational Encounters. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2011.

Reproductive Viability and the State: Embryonic Stem Cells in India. In Browner, C and Sargent, C (ed.). Reproduction, Globalisation and the State. Durham NC: Duke, 2010.

Assisted Life: The Neoliberal Moral Economy of Embryonic Stem Cells in India. In Birenbaum-Carmeli, D and Inhorn, M. C (ed.). Assisting Reproduction, Testing Genes: Global Encounters with New Biotechnologies. New York: Berghahn Books, 2009.

Biosociality to Bio-Crossings: Encounters with Assisted Conception and Embryonic Stem Cells in India. In Gibbon, S and Novas, C (ed.). Genetics, Biosociality and the Social Sciences: Making Biologies and Identities. London: Routledge, 2008.

Classification and the Experience of Genetic Haemochromatosis. In Atkinson, P and Glasner, P. (ed.). New Genetics, New Identities. London: Routledge, 2006 (lead author with Atkinson, P and Clarke, A).

Genetic Iceberg: Risk and Uncertainty in Cancer Genetics and Haemochromatosis. In Webster, A. (ed.). Innovative Health Technologies: Meanings, Context and Change. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006 (lead author with Atkinson, P and Clarke, A).

Reproductively Disabled Lives: Infertility, Stigma and Suffering in Egypt and India. In Ingstad, B and Whyte, SR (eds.) Disability in Local and Global Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. (co-authored with Inhorn, M)

Cultures of Embryonic Stem Cell Research in India. In Bender, W., Hauskeller, C. and Manzei, A. (eds.) Crossing Borders: Cultural, Religious and Political Differences Concerning Stem Cell Research. Munster: Agenda Verlag, 2005.

Conception Politics: Medical Egos, Media Spotlights, and the Contest Over Testtube Firsts in India. In Inhorn, M and Vanbalen, F. (ed.) Infertility Around the Globe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Inheritance in Society. Encyclopedia of the Human Genome, London: Nature Publishing Group, 2002. (co-authored with Atkinson, PA and Featherstone, K)

Other Publications

 “Public” Perceptions of Gamete Donation: A Research Review. Public Understanding of Science, 2009, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp-61-77. (co-authored with Hudson, N; Culley, L; Rapport, F; Johnson, M)

Inheritance in Society', Encyclopedia of the Human Genome (with Atkinson, PA and Featherstone, K), London: Nature Publishing Group, 2002.

Culture, Infertility and Gender: Vignettes from South Asia and North Africa', Sexual Health Exchange (Royal Tropical Institute Newsletter, The Netherlands), 2002, Vol. 2, pp.14-15.

Building Alliances Through Images and Analysis of the Strategies for Communicating Immunization' (with Singh, M.S), Economic and Political Weekly , 2000, February 19-26, pp.667-675.

PhD in Sociology