“Communities of Risk: Genomics, Precision Medicine, and South Asian Caste Populations”

This ethnographic history investigates the emergence of genomics as a transnational field of biomedicine in South Asia and the United States. It places particular emphasis on the goal of “genetic health.” Since 2000, that goal has authorized the analysis of millions of genetic variations within specific ethnic or racial groups in hopes of revealing if and why certain populations could be predisposed to specific diseases. This project explores the ethics, technologies, and discourses which have structured the genetic mapping of Indian caste communities while also documenting genetic research in India before contemporary genomics.