Professor Roger Jeffery
Job Title
Professor (Emeritus)
Research interests
Research interests
The Sociology of Scotland; Social history of medicine
From 1972 to 2024 I was involved in many research projects in South Asia, including research in village and small-town north India investigating how religious group membership and caste interrelate with childbearing, fertility behaviour, gender politics and schooling, in the context of agrarian change and the decline of the state. Other topics included public health, social forestry, sustainable nitrogen management and the politics of health. My current research interests focus on UK women doctors, and on the effects of South Asia on Edinburgh, and more broadly, on Scotland, in the long 19th century, and the implications for contemporary Scottish society, culture and politics.
I am not accepting any new PhD students
Background
Qualifications
- MA (University of Cambridge)
- MSc (Soc Sci) (University of Bristol)
- PhD (University of Edinburgh)
Publications from 2022
Edited Books
2025 (in press) Roger Jeffery with Friederike Voigt (eds). Perspectives on India: Edinburgh’s Colonial and Contemporary Views (New Delhi: Social Science Press, and London: Routledge)
Articles in Peer-reviewed Journals
2025: Roger Jeffery: ‘Women who qualified as doctors in the United Kingdom, 1877-1914: Birthplaces, parentage, and training’ Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. DOI: 10.1177/14782715251333612.
2024: Roger Jeffery, David S. Jones, and Kiran Kumbhar. ‘The historical sociology of medicine in India: Introduction to the special section.’ Sociology of Health & Illness, 46, 5: 791-794. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9566.13737.
2024: Roger Jeffery: 'Current Challenges for Doctors in India: Deprofessionalisation, Reprofessionalisation or Fragmentation?' Sociology of Health & Illness, 46, 5: 795-814. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9566.13564.
2022: Clémence Jullien and Roger Jeffery. ‘Becoming a mother in COVID-19: Adjustments in performing motherhood.’ Medicine, Anthropology, Theory, 9 (2): 1–27. DOI: 10.17157/mat.9.2.5310.
2022: Anastasia L. Yang, Nandula Raghuram, Stephen D Porter, Tapan K. Adhya, Sangeeta Bansal, Ananta Panda, Nissanka, S. Aminath Shazly, Rifaath Hassan, Mohammad A. Watto, Anik, A.R., Rajendra Joshi, A. Jayaweera, Anju Pokhrel, Himadri Kaushik, David Kanter, Sharna, S., Sharmin, S., Smriti Das, & Roger Jeffery. ‘Policies to combat nitrogen pollution in South Asia: Gaps and opportunities’, Environmental Research Letters. DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/ac48b2.
2022: Roger Jeffery: ‘Health policy and federalism in India’ Territory, Politics, Governance, 10, 1 (67-85), doi: 10.1080/21622671.2021.1899976
Other publications
2022: Antonia Simpson and Roger Jeffery: ‘John Borthwick Gilchrist: An Edinburgh Lad O’ Pairts Let Loose in India and London’ Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, New Series 17: 1-14.