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Laura A. Meek
(She/Her/Hers or They/Them/Theirs)Assistant Professor
Anthropology; Community Engagement, Social Change, Equity; Global Studies; Power, Conflict and Ideas
Office: ART 274BEmail: laura.meek@ubc.ca
Graduate student supervisor
Research Summary
Pharmaceuticals and Counterfeit Drugs; Antimicrobial Resistance; Medical and Cultural Anthropology; Critical Global Health; Sensoriums, Embodiment, and the Anthropology of the Body; Feminist, Anti-racist, and Decolonial Science and Technology Studies; Leprosy and Disease Elimination; Critical Disability Studies; Ontological Politics; Dreams; Witchcraft; Tanzania; East Africa; Hong Kong; Fugitivity; Black Studies; African/a Studies; Postcolonial & Anticolonial Theory; Creative Ethnographic Prose
Courses & Teaching
I teach courses on cultural and medical anthropology; African & Africana studies; global health; embodiment and the anthropology of the body; feminist, anti-racist, and decolonial science and technology studies; global studies; and post/anticolonial theory, including:
• ANTH 100: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology;
• ANTH 227: Introduction to Medical Anthropology;
• ANTH 330: Psychological Distress, Mental Health, and Well-being;
• ANTH 354: Imagining Africa Otherwise;
• ANTH 400: History of Anthropology;
• ANTH 429: Global Health and International Development;
• IGS 559B: Directed Studies in Social Science Research;
• IGS 593: Decolonizing the ‘Global’: Contemporary Ethnography and Post/Anticolonial Theory.
Biography
I am a cultural and medical anthropologist whose primary research centers around counterfeit pharmaceuticals, bodily epistemologies, and the politics of healing in East Africa. I am committed—in my research, service work, and teaching—to addressing the structural inequalities that underlie processes of knowledge production. I believe that the importance of diversity in higher education is both about correcting historical and social injustices in terms of who has access to such institutions and also about amending whose knowledge counts as knowledge. I strive towards liberatory social transformation both within and beyond higher education, and have served on the Equity Committee of the UBC Faculty Association since my first term here.
I currently supervise M.A. and Ph.D. students through UBC Okanagan’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies programs in Global Studies; Power, Conflict, and Ideas; and Community Engagement, Social Change, Equity. I also serve on graduate committees in the Department of Anthropology at the UBC Vancouver campus and externally to UBC. My primary areas of graduate supervision include: medical anthropology and global health; politics and society in sub-Saharan Africa; feminist, anti-racist, de/anticolonial, and critical theory; ethnography and qualitative methods; and science and technology studies. I am committed to treating all my students with respect and kindness, and to helping bring to fruition their own visions for their research and future careers. Interested potential students are welcome to reach out to me via email.
Before joining UBC in 2022, I spent three years as a faculty member in the interdisciplinary Centre for the Humanities and Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, where I also held affiliations with the African Studies Programme and the Department of Comparative Literature. I received my Ph.D. and M.A. in Anthropology from the University of California, Davis, as well as an M.A. in Women’s Studies from George Washington University and an Honors B.A. in Comparative Human Development from the University of Chicago. Between degrees, I worked for a number of years in the nonprofit sector in the areas of prison abolition (at the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES) in New York City), women’s empowerment (with the Sankalp Volunteer Society in India and Moshi Disabled in Tanzania), and environmental conservation (at the Student Conservation Association in California).
Websites
Storying Otherwise: A Hub for Creative Ethnographic Writing
UBC Okanagan Science and Technology Studies Collective
Degrees
PhD, Anthropology, University of California, Davis
MA, Anthropology, University of California, Davis
MA, Women’s Studies, George Washington University
BA (Honors), Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago
Research Interests & Projects
My first project, Pharmaceuticals in Divergence: Radical Uncertainty and World-Making Tastes in Tanzania, is based on over three years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, and focuses on the proliferation of counterfeits in local biomedical markets where an estimated 30-60% of drugs are thought to be adulterated or substandard. I explore the bodily epistemologies through which my interlocutors assess, decipher, and challenge biomedical claims, while also demonstrating how they transform pharmaceuticals, allowing these substances to act outside the logics of biomedicine. I approach this material through the lens of feminist, anti-racist, and decolonial science and technology studies (STS), as a way to engage conditions of radical uncertainty and world-making innovation happening in Africa today.
My second project, The Grammar of Leprosy: Temporal Politics and the Impossible Subject, develops a line of inquiry which was prompted by my discovery that the antibiotic cure for leprosy was readily available, and yet inaccessible, for my interlocutors in Tanzania in need of treatment. I am currently developing a multi-sited and interdisciplinary research project on the temporal politics of leprosy elimination campaigns across historical archives, scientific knowledge production, and global health initiatives. This work contributes to the interdisciplinary field of critical science studies, which has a growing and dynamic group of scholars here at UBC-O. I am a member of the Steering Committee for the UBC-O Science and Technology Studies Collective where we investigate scientific and technological developments using historical, sociological, gender studies, critical race studies, anthropological, and literary frameworks.
I am also the Co-Director of Storying Otherwise: A Hub for Creative Ethnographic Writing at UBC-O. I co-founded this Hub, with Sue Frohlick, to create a national and international network for public-facing creative ethnographic writing. Creative ethnographic writing is a diverse genre that includes creative nonfiction, ethnographic fiction, poetry, graphic novels, memoirs, and more. The premise of “storying otherwise” is that our writing has the power to bring new worlds into being—worlds that can resist the pull of the probable to insist upon that which is latent, inchoate, or suppressed, but still possible. Our Hub seeks to harness the promise of creative writing to expand our imaginations and offer new horizons of the possible.
Additional areas of my scholarship include: critical disability studies grounded in/from the Global South; histories of medicine and healing across Indian Ocean worlds; dreaming as a medical intervention and world-making practice; fugitivity in both Tanzania and Hong Kong; transnational efforts to dismantle coloniality and white supremacy in global health policy; and the centrality of excrement to post/neocolonial power, subjection, and subjectivity.
Selected Publications & Presentations
Selected Recent Publications
2025.“Provincializing Bodyminds, Decolonizing Disability.” Social Science & Medicine 376: 118048. Co-authored with Giorgio Brocco and Jane L. Saffitz.
2025. “On Epistemic Aporias and the Coloniality of (My) Categories.” American Ethnologist 52(1): 90-99. Special Forum: ‘I Was Wrong.’
2024. “Shit Voyeurism, Anti-Blackness, and the Spherical: Rendering Antibiotic Use in Africa.” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 10(2): 1-26.
2024. “Countering the Logics of War in Global Health Policy: Fake Drugs, Antimicrobial Resistance, and Fugitive Science.” Anthropology & Medicine 31(1-2): 139-155. Special Issue: ‘Anthropologies of Health Policy.’
2024. “African Experiments in Health and Healing: Science from the Home and Homestead.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 49(2): 294-317. Co-authored with Abigail H. Neely.
2023. “Fugitive Hong Kong.” Current Anthropology 64(6): 736-748. Co-authored with Bai Hua.
2023. “Contested Truths Over COVID-19 in East Africa: Examining Opposition to Public Health Measures in Tanzania and Uganda.” African Studies Review 66(4): 873-898. Co-authored with Jia Hui Lee and Jacob Katumusiime.
2023. “The Coloniality of Global Health.” Africa Is A Country, June 5.
2023. “Beyond the Limits: Medicine, Healing, and Medical Anthropology.” Special ‘In Conversation’ Section co-edited with Abigail H. Neely. “Introduction” co-authored with Abigail H. Neely. “Beyond the Limits: Conversation, Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, & Part V” co-authored with Abigail H. Neely, Tatiana Chudakova, Sienna R. Craig, and Casey Golomski. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 37(2): 81-84, 90-91, 96-97, 102-103, 110-111, 116-117.
2023. “Chakachua Pharmaceuticals and Fugitive Science.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 37(2): 104-109. Special Section: Beyond the Limits: Medicine, Healing, and Medical Anthropology.
2023. “Africa Out of the Shadows: Authoritarian Anti-Imperialism, Transnational Pentecostalism, and Covid-19 ‘Conspiracy Theories’.” In Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories in Global Perspective. Peter Knight and Michael Butter, Eds. Pp. 158-171. New York, NY: Routledge.
2022. “Otherwise.” Feminist Anthropology 3(2): 274-283. Special Issue: ‘Keywords: A Feminist Vocabulary.’ Co-authored with Julia Alejandra Morales Fontanilla.
2022. “Azizi: Gender, Relationality, and the Embodiment of Mawazo in Tanzania.” Anthropology and Humanism 47(1): 159-168.
2021. “Knowing Better? Epistemological Bounds in MAQ from 1975–2021.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Reading the Archive Series, Issue 3.
2021. “The Grammar of Leprosy: Temporal Politics and the Impossible Subject.” Medicine Anthropology Theory 8(3): 1-26. (Recipient of the Early Career Paper Award from the Medical Anthropology Europe Network and Medicine Anthropology Theory.)
2021.“Intersections of Political Power, Religion, and Public Health in Africa: Covid-19, Tanzanian President Magufuli, and Nigerian Prophet T. B. Joshua.” Somatosphere, November 12.
2021. “Contested Truths over Covid-19 in Africa: Introduction.” Somatosphere, March 17. Series co-edited & Introduction co-authored with Jia Hui Lee and Jacob Katumusiime Mwine-Kyarimpa.
2021. “The Visual Exhibition Project.” Teaching and Learning Anthropology Journal, Teaching Resources, November 16. Co-authored with Priscilla Song, Anna Iskra, and Ray Linyan Jiang.
2021. “Fugitive Science: Beer Brewing and Experiments with Pharmaceuticals in Tanzania.” Platypus, Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC), February 16.
2020. “Bibi’s Uchungu: Eating, Bitterness, and Relationality Across Indian Ocean Worlds.” In Reimagining Indian Ocean Worlds. Smriti Srinivas, Bettina Ng’weno, and Neelima Jeychandran, Eds. Pp. 197-211. New York, NY: Routledge.
2020. “Going Viral in Hong Kong.” Anthropology News, March 3. Co-authored with Justin Haruyama and Ria Sinha.
Selected Grants & Awards
2025 Collaborative Research Mobility Award (Co-PI, with PI Sue Frohlick), University of British Columbia
2024 Workshop Grant (PI, with Co-PI Cristiana Giordano), Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
2024 Public Humanities Research Engagement Grant (Co-PI, with PI Sue Frohlick), University of British Columbia
2022 Hampton Fund Research Grant, University of British Columbia
2021 MAE–MAT Early Career Paper Award, Medical Anthropology Europe Network, European Association of Social Anthropologists, and Medicine Anthropology Theory Journal
2021 Creative Ethnographic Prose Competition, 3rd Prize, Society for Humanistic Anthropology
2020 Early Career Scheme Grant & Award, Research Grants Council of Hong Kong
2020 Common Core Teaching Development Grant (with Priscilla Song), University of Hong Kong
2019 Carter G. Woodson Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship, African-American and African Studies, University of Virginia (declined)
2019 Modeling Interdisciplinary Inquiry Postdoctoral Fellowship, Humanities and Interpretive Social Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis (declined)
2018 Charles Hughes Graduate Student Paper Prize, Society for Medical Anthropology
2018 Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award (Student Nominated), University of California, Davis
2018 Bennetta Jules-Rosette Graduate Essay Award, Association for Africanist Anthropology
2018 Early Career Medical Humanities Fellowship, University of Strathclyde and Shanghai University (declined)
2017 Photography Award, American Anthropological Association
2017 Rudolf Virchow Graduate Student Award, Critical Anthropology for Global Health Caucus, Society for Medical Anthropology
2017 Reimagining Indian Ocean Worlds Mellon Research Initiative Dissertation Writing Grant
2014 Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, with additional Osmundsen Initiative funding
2013 U.S. National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, co-awarded by the Cultural Anthropology Program & the Science, Technology, and Society Program
2010 Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship, University of California
2009 Making a Difference Award, Women’s Studies Endowment, George Washington University
2008 George Washington University Fellowship
Professional Services/Affiliations/Committees
I have professional affiliations with the African Studies Association (ASA); American Anthropological Association (AAA); American Ethnological Society (AES); Association for Africanist Anthropology (AfAA); Association for Feminist Anthropology (AFA); Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA); CASCA Medical Anthropology Network; CASCA Network of Critical Pedagogy in Canadian Anthropology; Canadian Association of African Studies (CAAS); Hong Kong Anthropological Society (HKAS); Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI); Society for Cultural Anthropology (SCA); Society for Humanistic Anthropology (SHA); Society for Medical Anthropology (SMA); Society for Social Studies of Science (4S); and the Tanzanian Studies Association (TSA).
My leadership positions within these associations have included service as:
Co-Chair of the Conference Organizing Committee for the 2026 Cascadia Seminar in Medical Anthropology (2025 – present)
Invited Co-Chair of the Health, Healing, and Disability Section of the 2024 African Studies Association Annual Meeting (2024)
Member of the Conference Organizing Committee for the 2024 Cascadia Seminar in Medical Anthropology (2023 – 2024)
Member of the Local Organizing Committee and Student Volunteer Lead for the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Anthropology Society (2022 – 2024)
Elected Member of the Nominations Committee (Undesignated Seat 1) within the American Anthropological Association (2020 – 2024)
Elected Co-Chair of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and Integrative Medicine (IM) Special Interest Group of the Society for Medical Anthropology (2018 – 2021)
Ex-Officio Member of the Communications Committee on the Executive Board of the Society for Medical Anthropology (2017 – 2021)
Co-Editor of the Society for Medical Anthropology’s Section News of Anthropology News (2017 – 2021)
Media
2025. “Careers in Medical Anthropology: Q&A with Dr. Meek.” Interview by Kazandra Berrie and Nyakallo Kodisang. UBC-O Medical Exploration Society, March 20.
2023. “COVID-19: The Coloniality of Global Health.” Social Policy Worldwide, published by the University of Bremen, Germany, October 20.
2021. “Leprosy Paradox.” Interview by Teri Fitsell. The University of Hong Kong Bulletin 22(2): 26-27.
2018. “STS in Africa—Personal Careers: Laura Meek.” Interview by Angela Okune. In STS in Africa in Formation, created by Angela Okune and Aadita Chaudhury. Special Digital Exhibit: STS Across Borders, curated by Aalok Khandekar and Kim Fortun. Society for Social Studies of Science.