Welcome to the Hematopolitics Research Network! We’re a group of interdisciplinary scholars whose research focuses on all aspects of blood, its donation, its transfusion, and much more.
Join the Network
By becoming a member of the network, you’ll be featured on our project website, receive bi-monthly newsletters, and be the first to hear about exciting updates. To join the network, email us at hematopolitics@leeds.ac.uk with a short biography (max. 250 words) and a link to your institutional profile (where applicable).
Our Members
Emily Avera (Colgate University)
Emily Avera is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Colgate University. Her research incorporates the sociocultural dimensions of health, race and racialization in medicine, the semiotics of blood, the intersections between medical and linguistic anthropology, and science and technology studies, with a focus on transplant and transfusion medicine, primarily in South Africa and in other global health contexts. Her current book project in development, Fluid Identities: Risk, Residue and Race in South African Blood Services, is based on over two years of qualitative ethnographic fieldwork with the blood services in South Africa and engages with the multiple meanings of blood as both material and metaphor.
Samiksha Bhan (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)
Samiksha Bhan is currently pursuing her Phd in the department ‘Anthropology of Politics and Governance’ at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. Her research focuses on genetic knowledge production, racialization of risk, and health politics in Southern-Central India. Taking the case of inherited blood disorders, her project asks how genetic risk mapped onto historically marginalised communities intersects with colonial anthropology, family planning and population control programmes, and global health policy that in turn shapes illness experience, care work, and political subjectivities for disease-affected families. Before joining the Max Planck, Samiksha was an MPhil scholar at the University of Hyderabad where she wrote a thesis on the post-genomic turn in life sciences from the perspective of history and philosophy of biology. She also holds an MA in Sociology from the Delhi School of Economics, and remains passionate about Deccan history and Persianate cultures, health and political activism, and public science platforms in India.
Rachel Hale (Cardiff University)
Dr. Rachel Hale is a Research Associate in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. Her background is in Sociology and Science and Technology Studies. Her research includes: the NIHR funded study Social, economic and ethical issues around cultured red blood cells, stem cells and immortalised cell lines, which she worked on with Prof. Julie Kent at the University of the West of England and with BrisSynBio (a BBSRC / EPSRC funded Synthetic Biology Research Centre at the University of Bristol); and, the Wellcome Trust funded study Pre-conception genetic screening for autosomal recessive conditions of uncertain or highly variable prognosis: social and ethical implications, which she worked on with Prof. Felicity Boardman at the University of Warwick. Both studies involved research participants who have blood conditions.
Morteza Hashemi (University of Nottingham)
Dr. Morteza Hashemi is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at the University of Nottingham. He earned his PhD in Sociology from the University of Warwick in 2016. Prior to his current role, he was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Medical Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh from 2017 to 2020. Dr. Hashemi’s research interests are diverse, encompassing medical sociology, ethnicity and identity , sociology of religion and activism and sociology of science and technology. He is particularly interested in social circulation of blood in the UK and grassroots blood donation campaigns of ethno-religious minorities. Since September 2023, he has been the Director of the Identities, Citizenship, Equalities and Migration Centre (ICEMiC) at the School of Sociology and Social Policy of the University of Nottingham.
Past Newsletters