Dr Anjana Bala

Anjana’s research interests include madness, embodiment, art, and ecologies. Based on extensive fieldwork on Chennai, Tamil Nadu, her doctorate research explores how psychiatric and philosophical categories of the immaterial—hallucinations, psychosis, and madness—are intertwined with objects, matter, and bodies, that is, things in the world.

Her current research investigates how theories of subjectivity relate to questions of the non-human.

Anjana is also a dance artist and regularly performs and creates in the UK. As an artist, she is interested in how bodies are transformed by particular histories and how this impacts practices of movement. She is also involved in participatory art making.

PhD in Medical Anthropology - UC Berkeley/UC San Francisco

MSc in Medical Anthropology - University College London

BA in Human Biology - Stanford University

Expertise

India, psychological anthropology, art, embodiment, ecology, religion, trauma