My research explores the epistemologies of healing.Â
My current project is my doctoral research, which addresses the relationship between self-cultivation through training and subject-formation through caste, gender, and class among post-liberalization middle-classes in contemporary India. I am currently writing up my dissertation based on a year-long fieldwork stay at a training program in Bangalore. My research documents how regimes of truth interact to shape psychotherapy in India, and how psychotherapy in turn shapes emergent subjectivities. This looping effect is what makes ethnographic fieldwork so invigorating.
My recent paper in Anthropology Today communicates the epistemological and political stakes of casting psychotherapy as a 'Western' or 'Westernizing' practice. It argues that such tendencies risk furthering the populist neocolonial agenda of internal colonizers in postcolonial societies at the cost of subaltern experiences.
I am enthusiastic about translating my findings into practice. A research article from my dissertation is currently under review at a journal at the intersection of anthropology and the psy-disciplines for an audience comprising mental health practitioners. It reports on the role of gender-based injuries in the making of counselors. As a feminized practice in India, counseling training redistributes the burden of gender-based physical and symbolic violence and facilitates intergenerational healing at the household level.
Through my ethnography, I found pedagogies of care to be incredibly important for understanding social change at both the structural and individual levels. It is in professional training setups that the key traditions of a practice get crafted by instructors and trainees. I am pursuing my methodological interest in pedagogies of care by curating a blog series for the Society for Medical Anthropology's website under the Critical Care section. I am currently editing and curating a blog series on learning to care amid uncertainty with a focus on India. It brings together doctoral research in medical anthropology on genomics, nutrition, ayurvedic practice, and hospital pedagogy. It is scheduled for the latter half of 2026.
I am currently preparing the manuscript for a research article on the potential of pedagogy as a research method for facilitating epistemic justice. It draws on discussions of caste that I helped introduce in the counseling training program I studied in. This creative and participatory method also lets us reflect on caste and the psyche in a classroom with a majority of "upper" caste trainees. This was in response to a direct and persistent call from anti-caste scholars and activists to understand caste in caste-privileged socialities.
The counseling program I researched was hosted by a Catholic university managed by an indigenous congregation in India. It piqued my interest in elective affinities between Catholic healing and psychotherapy. I plan to continue nurturing this interest through future fieldwork on interactions between pastoral and secular healing approaches to mental distress. The goal is to compare the findings of my doctoral research with those from a Global North context.
My future research will also examine how generative AI is being used in mental health practice. This interest stems from my doctoral fieldwork, where counseling trainees and clients used large language models (LLMs) for therapeutic purposes. The program subsequently introduced a foundation course in AI and a practical curriculum. These moments made me curious about the work of AI in pedagogies of mental health care. It is an urgent question given the pervasive presence of AI chatbots and LLMs in youth mental health, especially in digitized societies.
My previous project was my MPhil dissertation, which sought to understand evidence-making practices in addressing the side effects of COVID-19 vaccines on menstrual cycles. I interviewed menstruators and doctors in India in 2021 and 2022. It whetted my interest in truth-making and expertise in healthcare contexts.