Vinay Kamat
Associate Professor of Anthropology,
The University of British Columbia, Canada
Education:
- Ph.D, Medical Anthropology – Emory University, 2004
- MA, Anthropology – University of Arizona, Tucson, 2004
- Ph.D, Anthropology – Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Bombay, India), 1992
Book
Select Publications:
Kamat, V.R. (2014). Fast, cheap, and out of control? Speculations and ethical concerns in the conduct of outsourced clinical trials in India. Social Science and Medicine
Kamat, V.R (2018) “And what will our children eat?” Dispossession and food security concerns among Muslim Makonde men on Tanzania’s Swahili coast. Reconceiving Muslim Men: Love and Marriage, Family and Care in Precarious Times Edited by Marcia Inhorn and Nafissa Naguib. Chapter 12, 245-261. Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford.
Biography:
Dr. Vinay Kamat is a medical anthropologist with a specialization in global health. He has conducted extensive ethnographic studies in India and Tanzania, with research focuses pertaining to the issues of health, illness, and healing of ordinary people in these two countries. Specifically, in regard to India, he explored the political and economic ramifications of pharmaceutical clinical trials being outsourced overseas. In the context of Tanzania, Kamat conducted ethnographic research on the everyday experiences of the marginalized citizenry of Tanzania during the nation’s transition from a Cold War socialist state to a fiscally conservative, neoliberal economy during the later years of the 20th century.
Specifically, with respect to Tanzania, he has explored the effects of healthcare privatization, drug therapy for the treatment of childhood malaria, and the social impact of marine conservation projects at the Tanzania-Mozambique border. In 2013, Dr. Kamat published a book titled “Silent Violence : Global Health, Malaria, and Child Survival in Tanzania. His current work looks to explore the social complexity of natural gas extraction in a marine protected area in Tanzania. At his current institution, The University of British Columbia, Dr. Kamat holds the prestigious Keith Burwell Professorship in Anthropology.