SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Stephan Kloos is senior researcher and ISA’s acting director since 2019. After completing his PhD in Medical Anthropology from the Universities of California, San Francisco and Berkeley in 2010, he joined ISA in June 2011 with a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellowship (MSCA). Since then, he led several research projects, including an ERC Starting Grant (RATIMED, 2014-19) on the formation of a transnational Sowa Rigpa industry in contemporary India, China, Mongolia and Bhutan. His research employs a postcolonial perspective to explore the development and sociocultural, political and economic role of Tibetan, Mongolian, and other Asian medical industries in the context of Global Health and Asia’s rise. He has published in leading journals (e.g. Current Anthropology, Social Science & Medicine, Medical Anthropology), coining the concepts of pharmaceutical assemblage and humanitarianism from below, and offering the first qualitative-quantitative assessment of the Sowa Rigpa industry in Asia. He is also co-editor of two books, Asian Medical Industries (Routledge 2022, with Blaikie) and Healing at the Periphery (Duke University Press 2022, with Pordié). His work can be freely accessed at stephankloos.org.
MAIN RESEARCH AREAS
- Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan, Mongolian and Himalayan medicine), Asian medical traditions and industries
- Medical and Sociocultural Anthropology, Global Health, postcolonial studies, STS, history of medicine
- Pharmaceutical assemblages, humanitarianism from below
- India, Mongolia, Tibet, Himalayas, China, Buryatia
CURRENT PROJECTS (PROJECT LEADER)
- Traditional Mongolian Veterinary Medicine (EPU 2022)
- Asian Medical Industries (ÖAW 2019-ongoing)
- Reassembling Tibetan Medicine: the formation of a transnational Sowa Rigpa industry in contemporary India, China, Mongolia and Bhutan (ERC RATIMED, 2014-19)
- Redefining Pharmaceutical Efficacy and Safety in Contemporary Exile Tibetan Medicine (2013-14)
PROJECTS (COLLABORATION)