Vincanne Adams, PhD

Professor
Humanities & Social Sciences
+1 415 502-6483

As faculty in the Joint Program in Medical Anthropology (UCSF/UC Berkeley), I am committed to making a contribution to knowledge and insight about the interface between health and the harm that arises from that which cannot be strictly called biological. I have published on a range of topics, including ethnomedicine and global health, the politics of medical knowledge, post disaster climate harm, metrics, safe motherhood, social justice, agrochemical industries and academic capitalism. My research has been funded by the NIH, NIMC, NICHHD, NSF, The Wenner Gren Foundation, The Fulbright Foundation, and the UC Humanities Research Institute. I received The Basham Medal, the Distinction in Teaching Award, and some of my books have been shortlisted for awards. I was editor for Medical Anthropology Quarterly, and have served on the Editorial Boards for several Medical and Cultural Anthropology journals. I co-edit the book series with Duke University Press called Critical Global Health (with Joao Beihl). Alongwith numerous peer reviewed articles, I have authored or co-authored 9 books, including:
Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas (Princeton 2006)
Doctors for Democracy: The Role of Health Professionals in the Nepal Revolution (Cambridge 1998)
Sex In Development: Science, Sexuality and Morality in Global Perspective (with Stacy L. Pigg, editors, Duke 2005)
Medicine Between Science and Religion: Explorations on Tibetan Grounds (with Sienna Craig and Mona Schrempf, editors, Berghahn Press 2010)
Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith: New Orleans in the Wake of Katrina (Duke 2014)
Metrics: What Counts in Global Health (Duke University Press, 2017)
What's Making Our Children Sick?(with Michelle Perro, co-authors, Chelsea Green Publishers, 2018)
Glyphosate and the Swirl: An Agrochemical on the Move (Duke, 2023)
Arc of Interference: Anthropology for Worlds on Edge (with Joao Biehl, editors, Duke 2023)

Publications: 

A pandemic of metrics.

Medical anthropology quarterly

Adams V, Chandler C, Kelly AH, Livingston J

Patient-Led Approaches to a Vaginal Birth After Cesarean Delivery Calculator.

Obstetrics and gynecology

Rubashkin N, Asiodu I, Vedam S, Sufrin C, Adams V

Arc of Interference.

Arc of Interference

João Biehl, Vincanne Adams

Death by Fire.

Arc of Interference

Vincanne Adams

INTRODUCTION.

Arc of Interference

João Biehl, Vincanne Adams

1 From Blossoms.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

2 Building the Food Chemosphere.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

3 Ontological Multiplicity & Glyphosate’s Safety.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

4 Chemical Life, Clinical Encounters.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

5 The Scientific Consensus & the Counterfactual.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

6 Consensuses, Academic Capitalism & the Swirl.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

7 Glyphosate Becomes an Activist.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

8 Chemicals as Agents of Care.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

Building the Food Chemosphere.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

Chemical Life, Clinical Encounters.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

Chemicals as Agents of Care.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

Consensuses, Academic Capitalism & the Swirl.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

From Blossoms.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

Glyphosate Becomes an Activist.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

Ontological Multiplicity & Glyphosate’s Safety.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

The Scientific Consensus & the Counterfactual.

Glyphosate and the Swirl

Vincanne Adams

BOOK: (In Progress) Soft Tissue and the Arts of Speculation in the Era of GE Foods

BOOK: (In Progress) Soft Tissue and the Arts of Speculation in the Era of GE Foods

Vincanne Adams

Climate disasters and global social medicine.

Lancet (London, England)

Adams V, Garcia S, Jones DS

Revitalising global social medicine.

Lancet (London, England)

Pentecost M, Adams V, Baru R, Caduff C, Greene JA, Hansen H, Jones DS, Kitanaka J, Ortega F

It Takes More Than a Village: Building a Network of Safety in Nepal’s Mountain Communities.

Vincanne Adams, Sienna R. Craig, Arlene Samen, Surya Bhatta

13 Neoliberal Futures.

Vincanne Adams

Medical Anthropology in the Time of COVID-19.

Medical anthropology quarterly

Adams V, Nading A

Introduction.

Vincanne Adams

Re-imagining global health through social medicine.

Global public health

Adams V, Behague D, Caduff C, Löwy I, Ortega F

Neoliberal Futures:.

Vincanne Adams

It Takes More than a Village: Building a Network of Safety in Nepal's Mountain Communities.

Maternal and child health journal

Adams V, Craig S, Samen A, Bhatta S

Introduction: Ethnomedicine and medical anthropology today, in the case of Tibet.

Medicine Anthropology Theory | An open-access journal in the anthropology of health illness and medicine

Vincanne Adams

The work of evidence in critical global health.

Medicine Anthropology Theory | An open-access journal in the anthropology of health illness and medicine

Joao Biehl, Vincanne Adams

What is critical global health?.

Medicine Anthropology Theory | An open-access journal in the anthropology of health illness and medicine

Vincanne Adams

Alternative accounting in maternal and infant global health.

Global public health

Adams V, Craig SR, Samen A

Slow research: thoughts for a movement in global health.

Medical anthropology

Adams V, Burke NJ, Whitmarsh I

The Making of a Disaster.

Vincanne Adams

Le « geste glorieux » du don de sang en unité de travail et les désirs postsocialistes en Chine urbaine.

Les enjeux du don de sang dans le monde

Kathleen Erwin, Vincanne Adams, Phuoc Le

Ethnography and the making of modern health professionals.

Culture, medicine and psychiatry

Adams V, Kaufman SR

Aging disaster: mortality, vulnerability, and long-term recovery among Katrina survivors.

Medical anthropology

Adams V, Kaufman SR, van Hattum T, Moody S

Encounters with Efficacy.

Asian Medicine

Vincanne Adams

Governing through Blood.

Vincanne Adams, Kathleen Erwin, Phouc V. Le

Anticipation: Technoscience, life, affect, temporality.

Subjectivity

Vincanne Adams, Michelle Murphy, Adele E Clarke

Glorious Deeds: Work Unit Blood Donation and Postsocialist Desires in Urban China.

Body & Society

Kathleen Erwin, Vincanne Adams, Phuoc Le

Public health works: blood donation in urban China.

Social science & medicine (1982)

Adams V, Erwin K, Le PV

Global health diplomacy.

Medical anthropology

Adams V, Novotny TE, Leslie H

How to make consent informed: possible lessons from Tibet.

IRB

Miller S, Le PV, Craig S, Adams V, Tudor C

The Tibetans . Matthew T. Kapstein.

The China Journal

Vincanne Adams

Having a "safe delivery": conflicting views from Tibet.

Health care for women international

Adams V, Miller S, Chertow J, Craig S, Samen A, Varner M

The Creation of Normativities as a Biopolitical Project.

Vincanne Adams, Michele Rivkin-Fish

The Production of New Subjectivities.

Vincanne Adams, Michele Rivkin-Fish

Introduction.

Stacy Leigh Pigg, Vincanne Adams

Society for Cultural Anthropology.

Anthropology News

Bonnie Urciuoli, Vincanne Adams

Society for Medical Anthropology.

Anthropology News

Nancy Vuckovic, Janelle Taylor, Vincanne Adams

Randomized Controlled Crime.

Social studies of science

Vincanne Adams

Ultrasonographic diagnosis of pelvic echinococcosis: case report and review of the literature.

Journal of ultrasound in medicine : official journal of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine

Ranzini AC, Hale DC

Establishing proof.

Vincanne Adams

Social Suffering.

American anthropologist

Vincanne Adams

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas: An Ethnography of Himalayan Encounters.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

David Holmberg, Vincanne Adams

Dreams of a Final Sherpa.

American anthropologist

Vincanne Adams

APPENDIX A Khentse Rinpoche Lecture, Tengboche 1987.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

APPENDIX C Musings on Textuality and Truth.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

APPENDIX D Production/Seduction.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

Bibliography.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

CHAPTER FIVE Seduction and Simulative Power in the Himalayas : Staying Sherpa.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

CHAPTER FOUR The Intimacy of Shamanic Sherpas.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

CHAPTER ONE Sherpas in Mirrors.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

CHAPTER THREE Buddhist Sherpas as Others.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

CHAPTER TWO Making Modern Sherpas.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

CONCLUSION Virtual Sherpas in Circulation.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

Glossary of Sherpa Terms.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

INTRODUCTION Lament for Pasang.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

Illustrations.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

Orthographic Note.

Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas

Vincanne Adams

Tourism and Sherpas, Nepal Reconstruction of reciprocity.

Annals of Tourism Research

Vincanne Adams

BOOK: (in Progress) Preoccupied: Life Under Surveillance in Tibet

BOOK: (in Progress) Preoccupied: Life Under Surveillance in Tibet

Vincanne Adams

BOOK: Doctors for Democracy: Health Professionals in the Nepal Revolution Cambridge University Press (Series in Medical Anthropology), 1998

BOOK: Doctors for Democracy: Health Professionals in the Nepal Revolution Cambridge University Press (Series in Medical Anthropology), 1998

Vincanne Adams

BOOK: Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith: New Orleans in the Wake of Katrina Duke University Press 2013

BOOK: Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith: New Orleans in the Wake of Katrina Duke University Press 2013

Vincanne Adams

BOOK: Medicine Between Science and Religion: Explorations on Tibetan Ground London: Berghahn Publishers 2010

BOOK: Medicine Between Science and Religion: Explorations on Tibetan Ground London: Berghahn Publishers 2010

Vincanne Adams, Sienna Craig and Mona Schrempf

BOOK: Metrics: What Counts in Global Health Duke University Press 2016

BOOK: Metrics: What Counts in Global Health Duke University Press 2016

Vincanne Adams, ed.

BOOK: Sex and Development: Science, Sexuality and Morality in Global Perspective Durham: Duke University Press 2005

BOOK: Sex and Development: Science, Sexuality and Morality in Global Perspective Durham: Duke University Press 2005.

Vincanne Adams and Stacy L. Pigg

BOOK: Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas: An Ethnography of Himalayan Encounters Princeton University Press, 1996

BOOK: Tigers of the Snow and Other Virtual Sherpas: An Ethnography of Himalayan Encounters Princeton University Press, 1996

Vincanne Adams

BOOK: What's Making Our Children Sick? How Industrial Food is causing an epidemic of chronic illness and what parents (and their doctors) can do about it. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishers, 2018

BOOK: What's Making Our Children Sick? How Industrial Food is causing an epidemic of chronic illness and what parents (and their doctors) can do about it. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishers, 2018.

Michelle Perro and Vincanne Adams