Arafaat Valiani is grateful to the Kalapuya people, many of whom are now citizens of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and the Tribes of the Siletz Indians on whose lands the University of Oregon is situated.
Overall, my current intellectual interests focus on ethical questions of decolonization regarding biomedicine and global health, specifically genetics, human genomics and precision medicine and how these intersect with difference and equity among South Asians in the Indian subcontinent and diaspora, and marginalized peoples in the global North.
One stream of my research explores ethical issues associated with genetic research in postcolonial India. This research contributes insights on global health ethics, as well as history of the life sciences.
A second stream of my research involves my role as Principal Investigator and Convener of the Precision Health Equity Project. The focus of our research team, comprising faculty at Arizona State University, the University of Oregon, the University of Calgary, Trent University and Ashoka University, is to navigate the bioethical issues involved in initiatives which seek to decolonize medical genetics and human genomics involving South Asian communities globally and other racialized communities. Among other inquires, we are in the process of creating a diagnostic tool that can assess decolonial protocols in genetic screening studies taking place in the global South and North thus facilitating decision-making as it concerns a study population’s choice to biobank their genomic data for future study.
Dr. Valiani's first book, entitled Militant Publics in India: Physical Culture and Violence in the Making of a Modern Polity (Palgrave 2011), combined historical and ethnographic research methods to examine the ethics of medical, ethno-religious and 'masculine' conceptions of the body in anti-colonial movements among Indigenous (Adivasi) and caste communities in modern India and its diasporas. This body of research contributes to debates in difference, ethics and medicine, sociology of the body, and medico-political histories of South Asia.
Before taking up his appointment in the Department of History at the University of Oregon, Arafaat Valiani was Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Williams College.
Dr. Valiani welcomes inquiries but is not currently taking graduate students.
2023 Killam Laureate bestowed by the Killam Trusts
2023 Killam Visiting Scholar, The Department of Community Health Sciences, Cumming School of Medicine, The University of Calgary (Canada).
National Science Foundation
Ford Foundation
National Endowment for the Humanities
Kluge Fellowship, Library of Congress
Wenner-Gren Foundation
American Institute of Indian Studies
Oregon Humanities Fellowship
Tom and Carol Williams Grant
Fellowship for Exceptional Research in Environmental StudiesConcordia University (Montreal, Canada) (awarded twice)
Manuscripts Under Review or in Progress:
Recoding Caste: Community, Genetic Mapping and Risk in Postgenomic India and Its Diasporas
Undone Science and Technological Innovation: The Case of Electronic Voting Machines in Postcolonial India (Co-authored with Patrick Jones).
Processions as Publics: Relgious Ceremonials, the City and Modes of Public Sphere Intervention in Colonial and Postcolonial Western India.
Media and Mobilization: Political Resistance and Its Media Forms in Western India.
Arafaat Valiani is grateful to the Kalapuya people, many of whom are now citizens of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and the Tribes of the Siletz Indians on whose lands the University of Oregon is situated.
Overall, my current intellectual interests focus on ethical questions of decolonization regarding biomedicine and global health, specifically genetics, human genomics and precision medicine and how these intersect with difference and equity among South Asians in the Indian subcontinent and diaspora, and marginalized peoples in the global North.
One stream of my research explores ethical issues associated with genetic research in postcolonial India. This research contributes insights on global health ethics, as well as history of the life sciences.
A second stream of my research involves my role as Principal Investigator and Convener of the Precision Health Equity Project. The focus of our research team, comprising faculty at Arizona State University, the University of Oregon, the University of Calgary, Trent University and Ashoka University, is to navigate the bioethical issues involved in initiatives which seek to decolonize medical genetics and human genomics involving South Asian communities globally and other racialized communities. Among other inquires, we are in the process of creating a diagnostic tool that can assess decolonial protocols in genetic screening studies taking place in the global South and North thus facilitating decision-making as it concerns a study population’s choice to biobank their genomic data for future study.
Dr. Valiani's first book, entitled Militant Publics in India: Physical Culture and Violence in the Making of a Modern Polity (Palgrave 2011), combined historical and ethnographic research methods to examine the ethics of medical, ethno-religious and 'masculine' conceptions of the body in anti-colonial movements among Indigenous (Adivasi) and caste communities in modern India and its diasporas. This body of research contributes to debates in difference, ethics and medicine, sociology of the body, and medico-political histories of South Asia.
Before taking up his appointment in the Department of History at the University of Oregon, Arafaat Valiani was Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Williams College.
Dr. Valiani welcomes inquiries but is not currently taking graduate students.
Ph.D. Columbia University
MA London School of Economics/School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London)
BFa Concordia University (Montréal, Canada)
2023 Killam Laureate and Visiting Scholar (Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary)
National Science Foundation
Ford Foundation
National Endowment for the Humanities
Kluge Fellowship, Library of Congress
Wenner-Gren Foundation
American Institute of Indian Studies
Oregon Humanities Fellowship
Tom and Carol Williams Grant
Fellowship for Exceptional Research in Environmental StudiesConcordia University (Montreal, Canada) (awarded twice)
Published or Forthcoming:
Valiani, Arafaat A. 2022. Frontiers of Bio-Decolonization: Indigenous Data Sovereignty as a Possible Model for Community-Based Participatory Genomic Health Research for Racialized Peoples in Postgenomic Canada. Genealogy 6 (3). https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy6030068
“Recoding Caste: Population, Genetic Mapping and Risk in Postgenomic India and Its Diasporas”.
"Recuperating Indian Masculinity: Mohandas Gandhi, War and the Indian Diaspora in South Africa (1899-1914)", 2014, South Asia History and Culture, Volume 5, Issue 4. https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2014.936208
"Physical Training: Ethical Discipline and Creative Violence: Zones of Self-Mastery in the Hindu Nationalist Movement (Gujarat, India)", Culture Anthropology, Volume 25, Issue 1. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.15481360.2009.01052.x