Profile
robert dean smith

Robert Dean Smith

PhD Candidate Anthropology and Sociology
PhD Affiliate at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy
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Spoken languages
English, Hindi, French

PhD Thesis

 

Title: Health as a Form of Politics in North India

Expected Completion Date: 2026

PhD Supervisor: Aditya Bharadwaj

External Co-Supervisor: Lawrence Cohen (UC Berkeley); Second Reader: Umut Yıldırım
 

Profile
 

Robert D. Smith is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology. His research is concerned with what is made possible, and not, for health within contemporary electoral democracies. Specifically, he studies how health is governed and experienced in Delhi when two competing political parties are in power in the Delhi Government. Robert completed 18 months of ethnographic research that took place between government offices and publicly funded primary healthcare clinics. He particularly focused on the Mohalla [neighborhood] Clinics: the Aam Aadmi [common man] Party’s ‘flagship’ healthcare scheme. Through this case, Robert’s PhD works between the disciplines of medical and political anthropology to ethnographically unpack the electoral-politics of bio-politics. 

Before his PhD, Robert completed a BSc (Hons) in Global Health and Social Medicine from King’s College London (2019), and an MA in Anthropology and Sociology from the Geneva Graduate Institute (2022). During his Bachelor’s, Robert conducted research on the history of cancer in India. This concerned how cancer came to be seen as a valid priority for private-philanthropic investment and public health systems’ planning in (post)colonial India. This research drew his attention to the relationship between politics and health, and he chose to further investigate this relationship in his MA research when he began researching the Mohalla Clinics. Before his PhD, Robert also worked in professional roles that aimed to bring social science perspectives to public health discussions, including ‘digital health’ and sexual and reproductive health and rights. 

 

RESEARCH INTERESTS
 

  • The Clinic
  • The Patient
  • The Body
  • Health
  • Bureaucracy
  • The State
  • The People
  • The Political
  • Affect
  • Hope
  • South Asia 
     

RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS AND WORKS

 

Peer-Reviewed Publications:

  • Smith, R.D. (2023). Quantifying Cancer: data, self-sustainable philanthropy, and tacit epistemological ethics in an East Indian cancer hospital. Global Public Health. 18(1), 1-13.
  • Smith, R.D. (2022). Emerging Infrastructures: The politics of radium and the validation of radiotherapy in India’s first tertiary cancer hospital. BioSocieties. 17(3), 415-441.
  • Boydell, V., Smith, R.D., Global LARC Collaborative. (2023). Hidden in plain sight: A systematic review of coercion and Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptive Methods (LARC). PLOS Global Public Health. 3(8): e0002131.
  • Boydell, V., Wright, K.Q., Smith, R.D. (2021). A Rapid Review of Pleasure in First Sexual Experience(s). Journal of Sex Research. 58(7), 850-862.
  • Chaudhuri, M., Mkumba, L., Raveendran, Y., Smith, RD. (2021). Decolonizing Global Health: beyond ‘reformative’ roadmaps and towards decolonial thought. BMJ GH. 6:e006371.
  • Smith, R.D. (2021). Toward a Theory of Institutions: dispersing accountability at Johns Hopkins University. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation. 22(4), 465-477.
  • Smith, R.D., and Mallath, M. (2019). History of the Growing Burden of Cancer in India: From Antiquity to the 21st Century. Journal of Global Oncology. (5), 1-15.
  • Smith, R.D. (2019). The spread of radiology in India from 1941 to 1956. Indian Journal of Cancer. 56(3), 285.
  • Smith, R.D., et al. (2019). Preliminary Results of a Cost Analysis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment at Tata Medical Center, Kolkata, India; 2011-2016. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, S221, 408.
  • Holly, L., Smith, R.D., et al. (2022). A review of digital health strategies in ten countries with young populations: Do they serve the health needs of children and youth in a digital age? Frontiers in Digital Health. 4.
  • Lohiya, A., Daniel, R.A., Smith, R.D., et al. (2022) Cancer prevention and control in India can get a boost through a primary health care-based approach: A review. J Family Med Prim Care. 11, 4286-4292.  
  • Lahariya, C., Mishra, S., Arokiam Daniel, R., … Smith, R.D. (2021). Prevention and control of cardiovascular diseases in India needs a strengthened and well-functioning primary health care system: A narrative review. Journal of Medical Evidence. 2(2), 140-146.

Book Reviews:

  • Smith, R.D. (2022). Book Review of ‘At The Limits of Cure’ by Bharat Jayram Venkat. Social Anthropology. 31(1).
  • Smith, R.D. (2020). Book Review of ‘Enduring Cancer: Life, Death, and Diagnosis in Delhi’ by Dwaipayan Banerjee. Contributions to Indian Sociology. 55(2).
  • Smith, R.D. (2020). Book Review of ‘A Contagious Cause: the American hunt for cancer viruses’ by R.W. Scheffler. Metascience. 29, 437-440.

Academic Commentaries and Blogs:

  • Smith, R.D. (2022). What does the global health industry mean by “digital health” and why it matters?. Geneva Health Files.
  • Wong, B. Smith, R.D. Siepmann, I. et al. (2021). Youth engagement in digital health: a critical perspective towards meaningful youth agency in governance. Medicus Mundi Switzerland.
  • Smith, R.D. (2020). Health Technology Assessments: the metrical evangelization of UHC in India. Somatosphere.
  • Smith, R.D. (2020). What Type of Governmentality is This? Or, how do we govern unknowns. Somatosphere.

 

FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS AND AWARDS
 

  • Swiss National Science Foundation, Doc.CH Grant Recipient (2024-2026).
  • Medicine Anthropology Europe—Medicine Anthropology Theory, Early Career Researcher Paper Award, 2022-2023, Runner Up.
  • Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID), PhD scholarship 2022-2026.
  • Geneva-Asia Association Fellowship 2020.
  • Journal of Global Oncology, 2019: Most Popular Journal Publication.
  • King’s College London, 2019: Professor Nikolas Rose Prize for the Most Outstanding Undergraduate Dissertation in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine.

 

PERSONAL PAGES
 

Affiliations
 

  • Visiting PhD Researcher, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, 2025-2026.

  • PhD Researcher, Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy, Geneva Graduate Institute, 2024-2026.

  • Visiting Doctoral Student, Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi, India, 2023-2025.

  • Co-Coordinator, Medical Anthropology Young Scholars, European Association of Social Anthropologists, 2022-2024.