valiani

Full Name
Arafaat Valiani
First Name
Arafaat A.
Last Name
Valiani
Affiliation
Faculty
Title
Associate Professor
Additional Title
Graduate Faculty in the Department of Indigenous, Race and Ethnic Studies and Global Health
Phone
541-346-5763
Office
301 McKenzie Hall
Office Hours
By appointment
Departments
History
IRES
Affiliated Departments
Asian Studies
Global Health Program
Programs, Research and Outreach
Wayne Morse Center
Teaching Level
Doctoral
Masters
Undergraduate
Profile Section
Profile

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 ProjectThe 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. 

 

 

Distinctions, Awards and Fellowships

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)

Selected Publications

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.

Militant Publics in India: Physical Culture and Violence in the Making of a Modern Polity (Palgrave Macmillan 2011).

"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.

"Physical Training: Ethical Discipline and Creative Violence: Zones of Self-Mastery in the Hindu Nationalist Movement (Gujarat, India)", Culture Anthropology, Volume 25, Issue 1.

Biography

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 ProjectThe 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.

Education

Ph.D. Columbia University

MA London School of Economics/School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London)

BFa Concordia University (Montréal, Canada)

Honors and Awards

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)

Updated

Member for

10 years 6 months