School of Social and Political Science

Background

As a social anthropologist with a professional and academic background in both the social sciences and global health/international development, my research brings an interdisciplinary perspective to the social and cultural dimensions of health and biomedical technologies, particularly in the areas of pregnancy and childbirth, child health care, poisoning diagnosis and treatment, and global health practice. My current strands of research explore the commodification of maternal health services and biomedical technologies in peri-urban and rural Bangladesh, the social lives of point-of-care tests, and acute methanol and pesticide poisoning in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. My work primarily focuses on South Asia, and I have collaborated in research and health programmes in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. In addition, I have worked on health programming in Burkina Faso and Haiti. Outside of academia, I spent nearly a decade working in global health programming and policy in the non-profit sector and with the World Health Organization.

Awards 

2023-2023 UKRI Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship

2019-2020 Tweedie Exploration Fellowship

Recent publications 

Perkins, J.E. (In press) ‘A “technical approach”? An ethnographic exploration of menstrual regulation as pregnancy termination in Bangladesh’. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.

Perkins, J.E., Chandler, C., Kelly, A, Street, A. (2024) ‘The social lives of point-of-care tests in low- and middle-income countries: A meta-ethnography’. Health Policy and Planning. 39(7):782-798. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czae054

Perkins, J., Nelson, S., Birley, E., Mcswiggan, E., Dozier, M., McCarthy, Anna, Atkins, N., Agyei-Manu, E., Rostron, J., Kameda, K., Kelly, A., Chandler, C., Street, A. (2024) ‘Is qualitative social research in global health fulfilling its potential?: A systematic evidence mapping of research on point-of-care testing in low- and middle-income contexts’. BMC Health Services Research. vol. 24, no. 1, 172, pp. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-024-10645-5 

Perkins, J.E. (2024) ‘“Beware of dalals": a moral world of health market brokerage in Bangladesh’. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI).

Perkins. J.E. (2023) ‘Fleshy entanglements in development aspirations: Birth position as a site of contestation in Bangladesh’, Medicine Anthropology Theory, 10(1), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.10.1.7303

Perkins, J.E. (2023) ‘Achieving medical maternal health desires through dhora-dhori in Bangladesh’, Journal of the British Academy special issue on ‘Locating Trust: An Interdisciplinary Exploration’. https://doi.org/10.5871/jba/011s6.031   

Rahman, AE., Ameen, S., Hossain, AT., Perkins, J., Jabeen, S., Majid,T., Uddin, AFM A.,  Haque, MD.,  Islam, MS., Islam, MJ., Ashrafee, S., Alam, HMS., Saberin, A., Ahmed, S., Banik,G., Kabir, ANM E., Ahmed, A., Chisti, MJ., Cunningham, S., Dockrell, DH., Nair, H., El Arifeen, S., Campbell, H. (2022) ‘Introducing pulse oximetry for outpatient management of childhood pneumonia: An implementation research adopting a district implementation model in selected rural facilities in Bangladesh’, Lancet eClinical Medicine,50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101511

Rahman, AE., Perkins, JE., Hossain, AT., Banik, G., Jabeen, S., Wall, S., El Arifeen, S. (2022) ‘Unpacking caesarean in rural Bangladesh: Who, what, when and where’, Birth, 49 (4), p.709-718. https://doi.org/10.1111/birt.12636

Rahman, AE., Perkins, JE., Salam, SS., Mhajabin, S., Hossain, AT., Mazumder, T., El Arifeen, S. (2020) ‘What do women want? An analysis of preferences of women, involvement of men, and decision-making in maternal and newborn health care in rural Bangladesh’, BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 20, 169. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-020-2854-x 2020