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Davina Kaur Patel

Stipendiat - Avdeling for samfunnsmedisin og global helse

E-post d.k.patel@medisin.uio.no

Brukernavn

Besøksadresse Kirkeveien 166 Fredrik Holsts hus 0450 Oslo

Postadresse Postboks 1130 Blindern 0318 Oslo

Andre tilknytninger Det medisinske fakultet (Student)

Pressebilde Last ned visittkort

Faglige interesser

Davina begynte som doktorgradsstipendiat ved Avdeling for samfunnsmedisin og global helse i august 2023. Davinas doktorgradsprosjekt er en del av det tverrfaglige NFR-prosjektet 'Anthropogenic Soils - Recuperating Human-Soil Relationships on a Troubled Planet'.

Prosjektbeskrivelse på engelsk:

Davina’s doctoral monograph, “Unruly Ecologies: In the Remains of Punjab’s Green Revolution”, presents an ethnography of postcolonial science and more-than-human entanglements. In the remains of the Green Revolution in Punjab, where intensive paddy-wheat crop cycles have come to dominate the landscape, state agricultural scientists, capitalist farmers, and alternative cultivators are grappling with the socioecological consequences of decades of ecologically and economically intensive and progressively unviable farming. Following state scientists and alternative farmers through agricultural universities, demonstration fields, agricultural extension centres, government offices, permaculture and natural farms, Davina’s project explores how scientists and alternative farmers are navigating and responding to socioecological crisis as it manifests through interconnected bodies of soil, water, air, human and more-than-human beings in a fragile landscape; one in which the legacies of colonialism, Partition, Green Revolution, anti-Sikh riots and communal violence persist, and dreams of postcolonial development, political autonomy and ecological sovereignty still hold. Davina’s approach is informed by medical anthropology, feminist science and technology studies, environmental humanities, and planetary health, providing insight into multispecies care, ethics, and environmental justice.

Davinas forskningsinteresser inkluderer også migrasjon, rasisme og helseulikheter, og i 2018 fullførte hun en mastergrad i «International Community Health» ved Universitetet i Oslo. Davinas masteroppgave var en etnografi av helsesituasjonen til mobile EU migranter som jobber på gata i Oslo.

Davina er lege utdannet ved University College London, og har jobbet klinisk i syv år innen generell/indremedisin, akuttmedisin og seksuell helse. Davina er i dag frivillig lege ved Helsesenteret for papirløse migranter i Oslo (deltid).

Davina jobber 25 % som en del av sin doktorgradsstilling, og underviser medisinstudenter i sosialmedisin inkludert migrasjon og helse, rasisme, diskriminering og helse, sosialmedisinske aspekter ved narkotikaavhengighet; og klimaendringer og helse, blant annet.

Undervisning

MED1100 - Medisinstudiet, modul 1 (norsk)
MED4500 - Medisinstudiet, modul 5 (norsk)
MED5700 - Medisinstudiet, modul 7 (norsk)
MED6800 - Medisinstudiet, modul 8 (norsk)
MED3002 - Kvalitative metoder i helseforskning (norsk)
INTHE4122 - Migration and Health (engelsk)
MED3066 - Klimaendringer og helse - din innsats teller (norsk)
ISSMF4206 - International Community Health (engelsk)

Bakgrunn

Gjesteforsker, Avdeling for sosiologi og antropologi, Ashoka University, India (2024-2025)
Universitetslektor, Avdeling for samfunnsmedisin og global helse, Universitetet i Oslo (fulltid, 2021-2022)
Lege i spesialisering (allmennmedisin), Oslo Allmennlegevakten (2020-2022)
Universitetslektor, Avdeling for samfunnsmedisin og global helse, Universitetet i Oslo (deltid, 2020)
Lege i spesialisering (indremedisin), Notodden sykehus, Hamar sykehus, Vesterålen sykehus (2018-2020)
MPhil International Community Health, Universitetet i Oslo (2018)
Diplom i tropemedisin, Royal College Physicians, Storbritannia (2016)
Lege i spesialisering i seksuell helse, Homerton Hospital, Storbritannia (2015)
Turnuslege, Queen Alexandra Hospital, Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Wycombe Hospital, Storbritannia (2013-2015)
MBBS Medicine, University College London (2013)
iBSc International Health, University College London (2009)

Verv

Styremedlem, Forum for Norwegian Global Health Research (2025-2027)
Akademisk mentee, European Association of Social Anthropologists (2025-2026)
Frivillig lege, Helsesenteret for papirløse migranter, Oslo (2020 - nå)
Medlem, Arbeidsgruppen mot rasisme og diskriminering i helse

Formidling

Priser og stipend

Kvalifiseringsstipend, Forum for vitenskapsteori, 2026
Forskningsstipend, Falkenbergs stiftelse, 2026
Stipend, Norsk antropologisk forening, 2026
Utenlandsopphold for doktorgrads- og postdoktorstipendiater, Forskningsrådet, 2024/2025
Forskningsstipend, Kirkens Bymisjon, 2017

Larsen, Tine Mejdell; Falk, Monica & Patel, Davina Kaur (2023). Tilgang på helsehjelp for personer uten oppholdstillatelse. I Bregård, Ida Marie (Red.), Helsetjenester til migranter i sårbare livssituasjoner. Gyldendal Akademisk. ISSN 9788205523890. s. 175–191. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Fjeld, Heidi E; Grude, Sine; Spjeldnæs, Amanda Hylland; Patel, Davina Kaur; Lie, Anne Helene Kveim & Bjerke, Lise (2021). Fra Asia til Afrika: antibiotikas reiser over det indiske havet. Michael. ISSN 1893-9651. 18. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

Se alle arbeider i NVA

Patel, Davina Kaur (2026). Waters That Do Not Mix: Following Water Through Scarcity, Toxicity & Struggle in Punjab. doi: https:/easst.net/conference/easst2026/easst2026-programme/#timetable. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
This paper traces how multiple water crises in Punjab are produced and governed through what I term a hydroscape: an assemblage of waters, infrastructures, institutions, scientific practices, and political-economic relations linked through water's material flows. Based on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork, I follow water across multiple sites across Punjab. I argue that groundwater depletion, toxic contamination, wastewater disposal, and environmental health harms are commonly treated as separate problems by state institutions and expert systems. Yet following water ethnographically reveals how these conditions are materially interconnected. Colonial canal irrigation, postcolonial Green Revolution agriculture, industrial expansion, wastewater infrastructures, and regulatory regimes have together produced a hydroscape in which water is simultaneously scarce, toxic, and, during extreme events, dangerously abundant. Drawing on STS scholarship on hydrosocial relations, infrastructure, and pollution, I show how technocratic interventions increasingly focus on managing flows rather than limiting extraction or contamination at source. Groundwater depletion is addressed through deeper extraction and alternative water supplies; pollution is addressed through treatment infrastructures and permissible thresholds. Such interventions redistribute harms while preserving existing relations of production and authority. Against these governance logics, communities living alongside the Buddha Nala mobilise sensory, experiential, and embodied forms of evidence to contest official claims of remediation. Their struggles highlight the limits of expert-led water governance and point instead toward a reparative politics of water justice grounded in accountability, situated knowledge, and the inseparability of environmental health and social justice.
Patel, Davina Kaur (2026). Co-Inflamed Ecologies: The Soil-Body-Inflammation Nexus in Agro-Intensive Punjab. doi: https:/www.soc.cas.cz/cz/akce/workshopy/living-with-inflammation-inquiry-into-the-ontology-and-politics-of-flammability. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
This paper shows how inflammation, understood as a boundary concept and as performing boundary work, offers a powerful lens for unravelling the intimate connections between soil ecologies, human embodiment and health in Punjab’s paddy-wheat agrarian regime. I advance the soil-body-inflammation nexus to make legible the often-elusive health effects of agro-industrial harm in a landscape shaped by high agrochemical inputs, intensive cropping, stubble burning, and groundwater depletion. This paper is based on nine months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork with alternative farmers and agricultural scientists in Punjab. Through the story of alternative farmer ‘Preetam’, this paper ethnographically maps locally articulated cascade pathways through which Punjab’s soils are understood as microbially afflicted by agrochemical inputs, and connected to disrupted gut microbiomes, inflammation and autoimmune disease—what can be understood as agrochemical co-produced inflammation of bodies. Yet soils are not just the medium via which more-than-human inflammatory cascades unfold. Soils themselves catch fire, as manifests through the phenomenon of ‘stubble burning’ in Punjab. Thus, the nexus also points towards the ways in which stubble burning shapes human/ more-than-human health (e.g. air pollution effects), and how it ignites political tensions and farmer-state conflicts. Through the soil-body-inflammation nexus, I hope to explicate inflammation as a boundary concept for grasping how soil and human bodies are co-afflicted by intensive agriculture. Furthermore, I seek to highlight how inflammation performs material and relational work at boundary surfaces between bodies and environments (e.g. epithelial lining of the gut), exposing agro-industrial and -chemical harm—inflammation as embodied informant, in a sense. Soil-body-inflammation nexus, is a crucial lens through which bodily health harms of intensive industrialised agriculture can be apprehended, lending deeper insights into how “inflammation in your arteries and the inflammation of the planet are linked” (Marya and Patel 2022).
Patel, Davina Kaur (2026). Lamoreaux, Janelle. 2023. Infertile Environments. Epigenetic Toxicology and the Reproductive Health of Chinese Men. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 160 pp. Pb.: US$23.95, ISBN: 978-1-4780-1933-6. Social Anthropology. ISSN 0964-0282. 31(1). doi: https:/www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/saas/34/1/saas340107.xml. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Borisova, Varvara; Patel, Davina Kaur & Senft, Lukáš (2026). Flammable Matters: A Workshop Report on Living with Inflammation. EASST Review. ISSN 1384-5160. 45(1). doi: https:/easst.net/easst-review/45-1/flammable-matters-a-workshop-report-on-living-with-inflammation/. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Reiss-Andersen, Berit; Hovland, Dina; Ghabayen, Amir; Patel, Davina Kaur & Løvold, Magnus (2026). Behandling: Folkerett i praksis. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
Når helsepersonell dokumenterer konsekvensene av krig og kriser, skapes det grunnlag for juridisk ansvar, politiske beslutninger og forebygging av nye katastrofer. Samtidig utfordres folkeretten, og de internasjonale normene som beskytter sivile settes ut av spill. Sesjonen ser på hvordan leger og helsearbeidere arbeider i dette spennet mellom medisinsk praksis, politikk og folkerettslige rammer, og hvordan dokumentasjon av helsemessige konsekvenser av krig og kriser kan påvirke både respons, debatt og beslutninger, også når beskyttelsesmekanismer svikter. Diskusjonen kobler praksis, folkerett og politikk, og utforsker hvordan helsepersonell kan bidra til forebygging, ansvarliggjøring og bedre beskyttelse når konsekvensene av konflikt rammer mennesker og samfunn.
Patel, Davina Kaur (2025). Rasisme er helsefarlig. Samora Forum. ISSN 2703-6715. 47(1). doi: https:/samora.no/pdf-filer/samora-forum-nr-1-2025. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Patel, Davina Kaur (2025). Soil, migration, and belonging in Punjab, India—diasporic connections to land. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Patel, Davina Kaur (2025). Thinking through the Soil in Socioecological Crisis - Ethnographic case from India's Punjab. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Patel, Davina Kaur (2025). Braiding Together Social Medicine, Ecologies & More-Than-Human Health. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Patel, Davina Kaur (2025). Molecular Intimacies with Air as Ethnographer-Mother in Punjab. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Patel, Davina Kaur (2025). Critical Ecologies: Postcolonial Scientists, Alternative Farmers, and the Afterlives of Punjabs Green Revolution. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Patel, Davina Kaur (2024). Lege: – Vi kan ikke lenger skille menneskenes helse fra jordas helse - Forskningsnytt. [Journal]. Apollon. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
Patel, Davina Kaur; Almashhadani, Mohammed Taleb Mohammed; Dajani, Mariam Kvernberg; Gravdahl, Oline Friestad; Givan-Haugland, Katey & Spjeldnæs, Amanda Hylland [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2024). Ingen skam å snu: Slipp medisinstudentene fra Gaza inn i Norge! Aftenposten (morgenutg. : trykt utg.). ISSN 0804-3116. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Patel, Davina Kaur & Mahmood, Amna (2024). Dei har samla inn 500 underskrifter for akademisk boikott av Israel. [Journal]. Uniforum. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Patel, Davina Kaur (2024). Adams, Vincanne. 2023. Glyphosate & the Swirl: An Agroindustrial Chemical on the Move. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 184 pp. Pb.: US$24.95. ISBN: 978-1-4780-1675-5. Social Anthropology. ISSN 0964-0282. 32(1). Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Patel, Davina Kaur & Hashem, Bushra Sherif Galaleldin (2024). Liberation through education and academic boycott «Frigjøring gjennom utdanning og akademisk boikott». Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Spjeldnæs, Amanda Hylland; Lengle, Emma Joanna & Patel, Davina Kaur (2024). Legeforeningen må gjøre mer for Gaza. Tidsskrift for Den norske legeforening (Tidsskriftet). ISSN 0029-2001. 144(7). doi: 10.4045/tidsskr.24.0243. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Patel, Davina Kaur; Spjeldnæs, Amanda Hylland; Almashhadani, Mohammed Taleb Mohammed; Lichtwarck, Hanne Ochieng; Lie, Anne Kveim & Lengle, Emma Joanna (2024). Rasisme som helseproblem. 144(14). doi: 10.4045/tidsskr.24.0377. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Lichtwarck, Hanne Ochieng; Patel, Davina Kaur; Almashhadani, Mohammed Taleb Mohammed; Spjeldnæs, Amanda Hylland & Lie, Anne Kveim (2024). Antirasisme og inkluderingsarbeid - to sider av samme sak. Dagens medisin. ISSN 1501-4290. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Mahmood, Amna & Patel, Davina Kaur (2024). Historikarar for akademisk boikott. [Journal]. Historikeren. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Patel, Davina Kaur (2023). Helsepersonell som pasientens advokat – erfaringer fra Helsesenteret for papirløse migranter. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Spjeldnæs, Amanda Hylland; Patel, Davina Kaur; Lichtwarck, Hanne Ochieng; Givan, Kathleen Alexandra; Gravdahl, Oline Friestad & Lengle, Emma Joanna (2023). Legeopprop for sivilbefolkningen på Gaza. Tidsskrift for Den norske legeforening (Tidsskriftet). ISSN 0029-2001. 143(17). doi: 10.4045/tidsskr.23.0713. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Thorbjørnsen, Vilde Fastvold; Patel, Davina Kaur & Eick, Frode (2022). Folkehelse - ikke for alle? Statistikk og tjenester basert på personnummer eksluderer en voksende mobil underklasse i Norge. Årgang 54(Nummer 128), s. 20–21. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv