Award Information

International Dissertation Research Fellowship 2019
Institutional Affiliation (at time of award):
Anthropology
Chemical Communications and Viral Clouds: Reassortments and Vectors in the Biomediatization of the Opioid Epidemic in Indian Punjab

The opioid epidemic in Indian Punjab requires a careful and critical analysis of the ways that narratives and chemicals converge upon and construct the bodies of addicts, the diagnostic categories of dependence and addiction, and the pharmacokinetics of licit, illicit, and pervasive chemical exposures. Rather than taking the notions of addict, addiction, and drug at face value, my research will examine the labor involved in constructing and propagating such shifting and relational terms thereby developing new anthropological ways of understanding the coproduction of subjects, objects, and injectables. My research will answer the following question: how is knowledge about addictions, drugs, and bodies produced and transformed by the work of journalists, psychiatrists, policymakers, politicians, culture/media professionals, and lay people?

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