Deborah Nadal
University of Glasgow, Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow
I am a cultural and medical anthropologist specialised in South Asia. I currently work as a consultant for the Department of the Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases of the World Health Organization. My areas of expertise include rabies and other neglected zoonotic diseases (e.g. Taenia solium) and One Health.
I received my BA in South Asian Studies and my MA in Cultural Anthropology from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and my PhD in Anthropology from the University of Verona. I conducted various field studies in tribal and urban India. Following the reception of the Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, my PhD research resulted in the book “Rabies in the Streets. Interspecies Camaraderie in Urban India” (2020, Penn State University Press). The book has received the English Language Book Award in the Social Sciences at the International Convention of Asia Scholar and an Honorable Mention from the New Millennium Book Award Committee of the Society for Medical Anthropology.
Having received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Global Fellowship from the European Commission, from 2018 to 2021 I worked on a postdoctoral project hosted at the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine of the University of Glasgow. Drawing from medical anthropology, field epidemiology, and Indology, the project applied ethnographic methods and contact tracing to the exploration of rabies transmission dynamics in Western rural India (central Gujarat and southern Maharashtra). I looked into alternative explanations of canine and human rabies etiology, and local conceptualisations of what international rabies control scholars and stakeholders call One Health. For this project, I collaborated with the Center for One Health Research at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, and the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bangalore, India.
My key research areas are health and the human-animal relation, but I mostly enjoy working at their intersection. My current interests include: rabies; local conceptions of zoonoses, anthroponoses, and disease reservoirs; One Health and more-than-human public health; infectious diseases in the Anthropocene; discrimination and disparity in cross-species health; zooerasty; animal feeding; veterinary anthropology; anthropology of South Asia. Methodologically, I am interested in: doing ethnography with non-human animals (e.g. multispecies ethnography); rapid qualitative research; anthropology in interdisciplinary research.
Supervisors: Bernadette Abela-Ridder (World Health Organization), Sarah Cleaveland (University of Glasgow), Katie Hampson (University of Glasgow), and Peter Rabinowitz (University of Washington)
I received my BA in South Asian Studies and my MA in Cultural Anthropology from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and my PhD in Anthropology from the University of Verona. I conducted various field studies in tribal and urban India. Following the reception of the Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, my PhD research resulted in the book “Rabies in the Streets. Interspecies Camaraderie in Urban India” (2020, Penn State University Press). The book has received the English Language Book Award in the Social Sciences at the International Convention of Asia Scholar and an Honorable Mention from the New Millennium Book Award Committee of the Society for Medical Anthropology.
Having received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Global Fellowship from the European Commission, from 2018 to 2021 I worked on a postdoctoral project hosted at the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine of the University of Glasgow. Drawing from medical anthropology, field epidemiology, and Indology, the project applied ethnographic methods and contact tracing to the exploration of rabies transmission dynamics in Western rural India (central Gujarat and southern Maharashtra). I looked into alternative explanations of canine and human rabies etiology, and local conceptualisations of what international rabies control scholars and stakeholders call One Health. For this project, I collaborated with the Center for One Health Research at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, and the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bangalore, India.
My key research areas are health and the human-animal relation, but I mostly enjoy working at their intersection. My current interests include: rabies; local conceptions of zoonoses, anthroponoses, and disease reservoirs; One Health and more-than-human public health; infectious diseases in the Anthropocene; discrimination and disparity in cross-species health; zooerasty; animal feeding; veterinary anthropology; anthropology of South Asia. Methodologically, I am interested in: doing ethnography with non-human animals (e.g. multispecies ethnography); rapid qualitative research; anthropology in interdisciplinary research.
Supervisors: Bernadette Abela-Ridder (World Health Organization), Sarah Cleaveland (University of Glasgow), Katie Hampson (University of Glasgow), and Peter Rabinowitz (University of Washington)
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Grounded in multispecies ethnography, this book leads the reader through the streets and slums of Delhi and Jaipur, where people and animals, such as dogs, cows, and macaques, interact intimately and sometimes violently. Nadal explores the intricate web of factors that bring humans and animals into contact with one another within these urban spaces and create favorable pathways for the transmission of the rabies virus across species. This book shows how rabies is endemic in India for reasons that are as much social, cultural, and political as they are biological, ranging from inadequate sanitation to religious customs, from vaccine shortages to reliance on traditional medicine.
The continuous emergence (and reemergence) of infectious diseases despite technical medical progress is a growing concern of our times and clearly questions the way we think of animal and environmental health. This original account of rabies challenges conventional approaches of separation and extermination, arguing instead that a One Health approach is our best chance at fostering mutual survival in a world increasingly overpopulated by humans, animals, and deadly pathogens.
Papers
cow products are utilized for personal hygiene and for household cleanliness as well. The medicinal usage of pañcgavya, particularly cow urine, is commonly known as “cowpathy” and is appreciated by Indian, especially Hindu, consumers. The reasons of this success are the eco-friendliness of these natural products and, above all, the fact that they come from the body of the most esteemed animal of India. In Hindu
culture the cow is considered to be the highest example of purity and perfection and the best emblem of generosity and plenty. The “five of the cow” are the most important products of this magnanimity.
of government programs of development that promote sedentarization and a conversion to agriculture have been deeply affecting Birhor culture and economy. Anthropological studies in this cultural context have often
overemphasized isolation of tribal communities, especially the ones considered more “primitive” as with the Birhor, and have generally understated their relationships with other groups. This article differs by focusing on the process of image building that Birhor constantly undertake to define themselves through the eyes of their neighbouring groups and, above all, to find a place for themselves within the rapidly changing economic network they are inserted in. The focus will be on their active role in this negotiation of identity and on the adaptive strategies they are putting in practice, with particular reference to the widespread view of their unique connection with forests and monkeys.
two centuries of Indian history. At a visual level these images were extremely powerful but they did not depict cows as living beings who also struggle, suffer, and die. Today, the digital photographs circulated
on the Net by animal activists represent cows as mortal animals and show their real, mundane, hard life on Indian streets, which is very far from the ideal state of holiness one could expect.
Teaching Documents
Grounded in multispecies ethnography, this book leads the reader through the streets and slums of Delhi and Jaipur, where people and animals, such as dogs, cows, and macaques, interact intimately and sometimes violently. Nadal explores the intricate web of factors that bring humans and animals into contact with one another within these urban spaces and create favorable pathways for the transmission of the rabies virus across species. This book shows how rabies is endemic in India for reasons that are as much social, cultural, and political as they are biological, ranging from inadequate sanitation to religious customs, from vaccine shortages to reliance on traditional medicine.
The continuous emergence (and reemergence) of infectious diseases despite technical medical progress is a growing concern of our times and clearly questions the way we think of animal and environmental health. This original account of rabies challenges conventional approaches of separation and extermination, arguing instead that a One Health approach is our best chance at fostering mutual survival in a world increasingly overpopulated by humans, animals, and deadly pathogens.
cow products are utilized for personal hygiene and for household cleanliness as well. The medicinal usage of pañcgavya, particularly cow urine, is commonly known as “cowpathy” and is appreciated by Indian, especially Hindu, consumers. The reasons of this success are the eco-friendliness of these natural products and, above all, the fact that they come from the body of the most esteemed animal of India. In Hindu
culture the cow is considered to be the highest example of purity and perfection and the best emblem of generosity and plenty. The “five of the cow” are the most important products of this magnanimity.
of government programs of development that promote sedentarization and a conversion to agriculture have been deeply affecting Birhor culture and economy. Anthropological studies in this cultural context have often
overemphasized isolation of tribal communities, especially the ones considered more “primitive” as with the Birhor, and have generally understated their relationships with other groups. This article differs by focusing on the process of image building that Birhor constantly undertake to define themselves through the eyes of their neighbouring groups and, above all, to find a place for themselves within the rapidly changing economic network they are inserted in. The focus will be on their active role in this negotiation of identity and on the adaptive strategies they are putting in practice, with particular reference to the widespread view of their unique connection with forests and monkeys.
two centuries of Indian history. At a visual level these images were extremely powerful but they did not depict cows as living beings who also struggle, suffer, and die. Today, the digital photographs circulated
on the Net by animal activists represent cows as mortal animals and show their real, mundane, hard life on Indian streets, which is very far from the ideal state of holiness one could expect.