HalliburtonMurphy HalliburtonHalliburton BookIndia Patent Wars
Ph.D, CUNY 2000

Professor, Department of Anthropology, Queens College-CUNY                 ____________________________________________________________

Office: Powdermaker Hall 315I
Phone: (718) 997-5528
                                                     Fax: (718) 997-2885
                                                     Email: murphy.halliburton@qc.cuny.edu
                                                   
                                                 



Research                                                           Selected Publications                                                        Graduate Center Webpage         

Murphy Halliburton specializes in medical anthropology, anthropology of science, and the history and cultures of South Asia. He has conducted fieldwork on ayurvedic psychiatry, biomedical psychiatry, and religious healing practices in South India and on the effects of the World Trade Organization's intellectual property regime (TRIPS) on people's access to medications in India and countries that consume Indian-manufactured pharmaceuticals. In addition, he has engaged with science and technology studies in an investigation of the relation of TRIPS-mandated intellectual property laws to the practice of ayurvedic medicine in India. In 2014, he completed a Fulbright-funded fieldwork project on recovery from serious mental illness in South India.


 Research Focus:
  • Medical Anthropology
  • South Asian Culture and History
  • Cross-cultural Psychiatry
  • Anthropology of Science

Courses Taught:
  • Intro to Cultural Anthropology (101)
  • History of Anthropology (200) 
  • Essentials of Cultural Anthropology (201)
  • Peoples of South Asia (208)
  • Medical Anthropology (225)
  • Science, Technology, and Culture (239)
Selected Publications


2022 Work and recovery from schizophrenia in India: a mixed methods study in Kerala. Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches. (link to abstract)

2021 The House of Love and the Mental Hospital: Zones of Care and Recovery in South India. In The Movement for Global Mental Health: Critical Views from South and Southeast Asia, William Sax and Claudia Lang, eds. Pp. 213-242. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

2020 Hegemony versus Pluralism: Ayurveda and the Movement for Global Mental Health. Anthropology and Medicine (link to abstract)

2018 "Resistance." International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Hilary Callan (ed.). Wiley-Blackwell

2017 India and the Patent Wars: Pharmaceuticals in the New Intellectual Property Regime. Cornell University Press.

2012 Introduction. (Special Issue – Intangible Property at the Periphery: Expanding Enclosure in the 21st Century, Murphy Halliburton, ed.) International Journal of Cultural Property 19(3): 233-249.


2011 Resistance or Inaction? Protecting Ayurvedic Medical Knowledge and Problems of Agency. American Ethnologist 38(1): 85-100.

2009 Mudpacks and Prozac: Experiencing Ayurvedic, Biomedical and Religious Healing. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

2009 Drug Resistance, Patent Resistance: Indian Pharmaceuticals and the Impact of a New Patent Regime. Global Public Health 4(6): 515-527.

2005. “Just Some Spirits”: The Erosion of Spirit Possession and the Rise of “Tension” in South India. Medical Anthropology 24: 111 - 144.

2004. Gandhi or Gramsci? The Use of Authoritative Sources in Anthropology. Anthropological Quarterly 77: 793-817.

2004. Finding a Fit: Psychiatric Pluralism in South India and Its Implications for WHO Studies of Mental Disorder. Transcultural Psychiatry 41: 80-98.

2003. The Importance of a Pleasant Process of Treatment: Lessons on Healing from South India. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 27: 161-186.

2002. Rethinking Anthropological Studies of the Body: Manas and Bodham in Kerala. American Anthropologist 104(4): 1123-1134.

1998. Suicide: A Paradox of Development in Kerala. Economic and Political Weekly 33 (36-37).


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