Sgoil Cheumnaichean Saidheans Sòisealta na h-Alba
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Chronic kidney disease of uncertain etiology (CKDu) has become a major public health concern in Sri Lanka, as well as in Mesoamerica, Mexico and some parts of India over the last several decades and it disproportionately affects rural and poor agricultural communities. In Sri Lanka, the north-central dry zone areas are the most affected. Over the last three decades, CKDu has subjected to ample of biomedical research conducted by local as well as international research institutions and has become a major talking point in public and political discourse in Sri Lanka due to its contested etiology. Despite there are more than thirty scientific hypotheses proposed to explain the etiology of CKDu, there is no consensus among biomedical researchers and medical professionals yet on the exact etiology of the disease.
With no scientific consensus on its etiology, CKDu has become an object of intense scientific and political contestation and intervention in Sri Lanka. Approaching this contested disease from an anthropological perspective, my research explores life in a high-risk CKDu “hotspot”, which has attracted multiple interventions by diverse external actors i.e. biomedical researchers, philanthropists, public health officials and community activists.
This fellowship will allow me to consolidate and disseminate my PhD findings, and maximise the policy impact of my research, helping me to establish myself as a successful academic and impactful social activist. There are four main objectives of this fellowship that will work synergistically in achieving the aforementioned aims.
1. Engage with key stakeholders and contribute to policy debates in Sri Lanka:
This fellowship gives equal weight to maximising both academic and policy impact of my PhD research, allowing me to establish rainwater as a viable drinking water option for communities affected by CKDu. The fellowship will give me the opportunity to explore the possibility of establishing an interdisciplinary mobile water testing laboratory in collaboration with three local civil society organizations and two local universities
2. Establishing myself as a leading scholar in anthropology:
I hope to transform my PhD into a submittable manuscript on the conflated relationship between philanthropic and scientific interventions around CKDu in the Sri Lankan context. I will also be able to publish a couple of peer-reviewed journal articles in reputed anthropological journals on citizen science and ontological turn in anthropology. In addition, with the support of this fellowship, I will present my research findings at an international conference and apply for a larger research grant which will lay down a solid foundation for my future academic and research career.
3. Contribute to the integration of citizen science methods in anthropology: This fellowship will allow me to build on my interdisciplinary background in anthropology and water chemistry to contribute to the development of novel anthropological research methods. I hope to design and conduct a micro methods workshop on citizen science at the Research Training Centre, University of Edinburgh.
4. Develop my teaching skills: This fellowship will give me an excellent opportunity to develop my teaching skills with international students at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels as a visiting lecturer for the courses, Anthropology of Global Health and South Asia in the World at the University of Edinburgh.
Advice for future applicants: After going through several years of stressful period in your PhD, you deserve to have some time to enjoy life and reap rewards for all the hard work you put into your PhD. For that, this postdoc fellowship would be an ideal opportunity. More importantly, it would provide you with ample resources including material and intellectual support. You will get the opportunity to work with experts in the field while sharing their knowledge and experience. In addition to establishing yourself in your own academic discipline, the fellowship will help you to maximize the societal impact of your doctoral research. Even if you are an international from a lower-and middle-income country background, like me, I can assure you that it is worth giving it a try despite being a highly competitive fellowship scheme.
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