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Arima Mishra

Areas of Interest & Expertise

  • Medical Anthropology
  • Health Systems Policies and Practices
  • Qualitative Research Methodology

Biography

Arima Mishra has taught at the University of Delhi, and worked in IC-HEALTH, Delhi {an initiative of World Health Organisation (WHO) and Global Forum for Health Research (GFHR)} and Institute of Public Health (IPH), Bengaluru. She has more than two decades of research and teaching experience. Her research is located at the interface between anthropology and public health. 

She has been engaged in ethnographic work on social determinants of health and equity, notions of ​‘evidence’ in medicine and public health, medical pluralism, public health ethics, and health system policies and practices. She has specifically engaged with work around health system governance, tribal health, maternal and child health, chronic illness, local health traditions, community health workers, and urban health. 

She is trained in Sociology from Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. She had been an academic visitor to several universities including University of Minnesota, USA, Glasgow Caledonian University, University of Edinburgh in UK, and University of Oslo, Norway.

She is a recipient of the M N Srinivas Memorial Prize for the best article in social anthropology published in Economic and Political Weekly, and the Charles Wallace Fellowship, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Courses

Certificate Courses

  • Ethics in Public Health Practices

    A 5-day course on ethical frameworks, dilemmas and resolutions in all aspects of public health practice including policy and program design, implementation and evaluation, communication, advocacy, research and training.

Publications

Books

Chapters in Edited Books

  • Mishra, A. (2020). Listening to accounts of health and illness: What do narratives tell us? In S. Choudhury Lahiri (Ed.), Doing Social Research: Qualitative Methods in Sociology (pp. 66 – 89). Orient Blackswan.
  • Storeng, K., Prince, R. & Mishra, A. (2019). The politics of health system strengthening. In R. Parker and J. Garcia (Ed.), Routledge Handbook on the Politics of Global Health (pp.114 – 121). Routledge.
  • Mishra, A. (2018). Now we feel ethics is everywhere: Reflections on teaching a course on ethics in public health practice in India. In A. Mishra and K. Subbiah (Eds.), Ethics in Public Health Practice in India. (pp.175 – 189). Springer.
  • Mishra, A. (2018). Bringing the ​‘social’ back in: Social Determinants of health as a methodological lens. In D. Nambiar and A. Muralidharan (Eds.), Social Determinants of Health: Concepts, Theories and Practice. (pp.21 – 34). Springer Nature.
  • Mishra, A., & Roalkvam, S. (2014). The reproductive body and the state: Engaging with the National Rural Health Mission in tribal Odisha. In K. Bielsen, & A. Waldrop (Eds.), Women, Gender and Everyday Social Transformation in India. (pp.123 – 138). Anthem Press.
  • Mishra, A., Flikke, R., Nordfeldt, C., & Nyirenda, L. (2013). ​‘Immunization is good for your children’: Local immunization practices in India and Malawi. In S. Roalkvam, S. Blume, & D. McNeill (Eds.), Protecting the World’s Children: Immunization Policies and Practices. (pp.149 – 186). Oxford University Press. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​9​3​/​a​c​p​r​o​f​:​o​s​o​/​9​7​8​0​1​9​9​6​6​6​4​4​7​.​0​0​3​.0006
  • Mishra, A., Hasija, S., & Roalkvam, S. (2013). Numerical narratives: Accounts of lay health workers in Odisha. In A. Mishra, & S. C. Chatterjee (Eds.), Multiple Voices and Stories: Narratives of Health and Illness. (pp.121 – 140). Orient BlackSwan. 
  • Mishra, A. (2010). Deconstructing self-care in biomedical and public health discourses. In A. Mishra (Ed.), Health, Illness and Medicine: Ethnographic Readings. Orient Blackswan. 
  • Mishra, A. (2008). Insiders and outsiders: Studying ​‘tribal Kandha villages’. In G. Pfeffer & D. Behera (Eds.), Contemporary Society: Tribal Studies Series, 7. Concept Publishing House.
  • Mishra, A. (2006). The Everyday life in a slum in Delhi: View of the children, In Deepak Behera (ed) (2006) Childhoods in South Asia. Pearson Longman. 
  • Mishra, A. (2006). Between the visible and invisible: Gender relations in a tribe in India. In J. Lowry & K. K. Misra (Eds.), Current Researches on Indian Women. Rawat.
  • Mishra, A. (2005). Kado Bikri: Informal process of land transfer among the Kutia Kandhas. In G. Pfeffer & D. Behera (Eds.), Contemporary Society: Tribal Studies Series, 6. Concept Publishing House.

Journal Articles

Report

Monograph

Book Reviews

  • Mishra, A. (2018, July). Politics and practices of health in India, [Review of the book Health beyond medicine: Some reflections on the sociology and politics of health in India, by V. Bajpao and A. Saraya]. Medico Friend Circle (MFC) Bulletin, 15 – 16. http://​www​.mfcin​dia​.org/​m​f​c​p​d​f​s​/​M​F​C​3​7​9.pdf
  • Mishra, A. (2015, December 8). V. Sujatha, Sociology of health and medicine: New perspectives, [Review of the book Sociology of Health and Medicine: New Perspectives, by V. Sujatha]. History and Sociology of South Asia, 10(1), 109 – 110.
  • Mishra, A. (2010). Recipes for immortality: Medicine, religion and community in South India, Richard S. Weiss, [Review of the book Recipes for immortality: Medicine, religion and community in South India, by R.S. Weiss]. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 24(2), 274 – 276. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​1​1​1​/​j​.1548 – 1387.2010.01102.x
  • Mishra, A. (2008). Made in China: Women factory workers in a global workplace by Pun Ngai,[Review of the book Made in China: Women factory workers in a global workplace, by P.Ngai]. Journal of Intercultural Studies. 29(2), 197 – 212.
  • Mishra, A. (2008). Knowledge and society: Situating sociology and social anthropology in India by T K Oommen, [Review of the book Knowledge and society: Situating sociology and social anthropology in India by T.K. Oommen]. Sociological Bulletin, 57(1), 143 – 146.

Newspaper Articles

Online Articles

Blog Posts

Policy Briefs

Video