School of Social and Political Science

Background

Research synopsis 

My research focuses on the commodification of maternal health services and biomedical technologies in peri-urban and rural Bangladesh, illuminating how technology and commodification reshape the medico-social worlds of pregnancy and birth. Academic and policy discourses around burgeoning health markets in the Global South often provide an explicit or implicit moral critique of the privatisation of healthcare, predominantly portraying health markets as an outgrowth of global neoliberal hegemony and tends to be critical of their effects. My research destabilises these assumptions, attending to the situatedness of maternal health markets and the intrinsic moralities of care that emerge and are renegotiated within and in response to health markets. This research problematises tropes of health markets as amoral or immoral and elucidates emergent moralities within markets; it expands thinking into the social lives of health technologies, attending to the co-construction of advanced maternal health technologies and the social worlds of pregnancy and childbirth; and it contributes to academic and critical policy discussions as private health services mushroom throughout the Global South, extending thinking beyond reified discourses, and opening alternate imaginaries for private health sector engagements.

Awards 

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

2019-2020 Tweedie Exploration Fellowship

Recent publications 

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

Perkins. J. (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. (Forthcoming)‘Achieving medical maternal health desires through dhora-dhori in Bangladesh’, Journal of the British Academy special issue on ‘Locating Trust: An Interdisciplinary Exploration’.   

Banik, G., Mazumder, T. Siddique, AB., Uddin, AFM A., El Arifeen, S., Perkins, J. , Rahman, AE. (2022) ‘Taking a pulse on community participation in maternal health through community clinics in Bangladesh’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20 (3), 2271. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032271 

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

Perkins, JE., Rahman, AE., Mhajabin, S., Siddique, AB., Mazumder, T., Haider, MR., El Arifeen, S.(2019). ‘Humanized childbirth: The status of emotional support of women during birth in rural Bangladesh’, Reproductive Health Matters, 27 (1). https://doi.org/10.1080/26410397.2019.1610277 

Perkins, JE., Rahman, AE., Siddique, AB., Mazumder, T., Haider, MR., El Arifeen, S. (2019) ‘Awareness and perceptions of women regarding rights related to maternal health in rural Bangladesh’, Journal of Global Health, 9 (1):010415. https://doi.org/10.7189/jogh.09.010415

Rahman, AE., Perkins, J., Mazumder, T., Haider, MR., Siddique, AB., Capello, C., Santarelli, C., El Arifeen, S. (2019) ‘Capacities of women and men to improve maternal and newborn health: Effect of a community-based intervention package in rural Bangladesh’, Journal of Global Health, 9 (1): 010413. https://doi.org/ 10.7189/jogh.09.010413

Siddique, AB., Perkins, J., Mazumder, T., Haider, R., Banik, G., Tahsina, T., El Arifeen, S., Rahman, AE. (2018). ‘Antenatal Care in Rural Bangladesh: Gaps in adequate coverage and content,’ PLoS ONE, 13(11). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0205149 

Perkins, JE ., Rahman, AE., Siddique, AB., Haider, MR., Banik, G., Tahsina, T., El Arifeen, S. (2018) ‘Opting for home birth in rural Bangladesh: an assessment of rates and reasons,’ Birth, 00:1–9. https://doi.org/10.1111/birt.12404 .