Dr Cressida Jervis Read
I am a Research Associate at the Centre for the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology researching the contemporary history of malaria in India after 1947 as part of a larger project at the Unit.
My research revolves around a concern with urbanisation, development and the consequences of shifting socio-environmental relations for human health. I have a particular interest in vector borne diseases (especially dengue fever) and what multispecies and material culture perspectives can bring to these issues.
Trained as a social anthropologist, with a regional specialisation in South Asia, my work is interdisciplinary in nature and I increasingly work with historical materials for a longer term perspective on these relationships.
Research Interests
- History of malaria
- Socio-environmental relations
- Urbanisation
- South Asia
My current research examines the history of malaria and malaria control in India between 1947 and the present as part of the 'Invisible Crises, Neglected Histories: Malaria in Asia, c.1900-present' project, a large Wellcome Trust funded project at the Unit running until 2020.
Prior to this, I explored the emergence of dengue fever in Delhi since 1996 against a backdrop of rapid urbanisation and contemporary climate change, as part of a project on 'The Challenge of Urbanisation: Health and the Global City' also at the Wellcome Unit. This focused on the social dimensions of dengue fever and its highly adaptable urban dwelling mosquito vector, Aedes aegytpi. It pursues a concern with understanding how people live, day-to-day, with mosquitoes and the consequences of this for state-society relations, public health practices and the afterlives of epidemics.
Both projects build on my doctoral research exploring the politics of development in urbanising South Asia. Tracing the lived experiences and spatial practices of residents over 22 months ethnographic research in a low income Delhi neighbourhood, I showed dominant representations of the neighbourhood as a site 'in need of development' were negotiated. Through this, space emerges as a powerful social and political medium that may be deployed by residents, local politicians and NGOs in a neighbourhood with few other resources to access welfare services and networks of state-society relationships. It contributes to research on the social and political context of NGOs as development actors, and on urban poverty and social change in urban neighbourhoods contemporary South Asia.
In addition, working geographers and anthropologists, I am a Co-Investigator on the Interdisciplinary Microbiome Project, scoping and developing an agenda for social science contributions to this rapidly developing area of scientific research and public interest. I also co-convene the Future of Cities seminar series, this year focusing on 'Urban Life' to explore human and non-human contributions to urban environments.
