Leena Abraham

Leena Abraham, Ph.D.

Designation and Affiliation

Professor and Chairperson, Center for Studies in Sociology of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

Research areas

Sociology of Medicine (culture and medicine, Ayurveda, medical pluralism)

Sociology of Education (medical education, gender constructions, formal and informal knowledge networks, science/culture interface)

Current research

Medical knowledge and practices- societal groups and power structures in the field of Ayurveda

Relevant Publications

Sujatha V. and Leena Abraham (eds.) (2012) Medical Pluralism in Contemporary India. Hyderabad, Orient Black Swan.

Journal special issue

'Indigenous Systems of Medicine', Special issue of Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLIV, No.16, April 18-24, 2009. (co-editor with Sujatha V.)

Articles

‘Gender, Medicine and Globalisation: The Case of Women Ayurveda Physicians of Kerala, India’, Society and Culture in South Asia 6(1) 2020:144-164

'Sociology of a Regional Medicine: Inheritance Capital, Social Networks, and Institutional Strategies in the Making of Contemporary Ayurveda in Kerala'. Asian Medicine: Journal of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine, Volume 13: Issue 1-2, 2018: 276–297.

‘Reproduction of Indigenous Knowledge in Plural Cultures: Ayurveda Education in Contemporary India’, in Sociology of Education in India: Disciplinary Perspectives and Contemporary Concerns edited by Geetha Nambissan and Srinivasa Rao. New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2013.

'From Vaidyam to Kerala Ayurveda' The IIAS Newsletter, No. 63, Spring, 2013: 28-29.

‘Medicine as Culture: Indigenous Medicine in Cosmopolitan Mumbai’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2009, Vol.XLIV, No.16: 68-75. (also available in Medical Pluralism in Contemporary India. Hyderabad, Orient Black Swan, 2012)

‘Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM) and Public Health Care in India’. In Leena V. Gangolli, R. Duggal and A Shukla (eds.) (2005), Review of Health Care in India. Mumbai, Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes, 187-223.

Book reviews

'What Is ‘Modern’ about Modernised Ayurveda?'. Review of the book Doctoring Traditions: Ayurveda, Small Technologies, and Braided Sciences by Projit Bihari Mukharji, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2016. Economic & Political Weekly, November 25, 2017, Vol. LII. No 47, 25-18.

'Studying Contemporary Ayurveda’ Review of the book ‘Power, Knowledge, Medicine: Pharmaceuticals at Home and in the World’ by Madhulika Banerjee, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.XLV, No.2, 2010: 25-28

Recipient of the Homi Bhabha Fellowship (2007-09) for research on 'Traditional Knowledge in Modern Settings: A Study of Ayurveda in Kerala, India'

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