Short Biography
Eva-Maria Knoll is a senior researcher. Her research interests focus on medical anthropology at the intersections with health, life sciences, mobility, island life and tourism in the Indian Ocean World, with special expertise for the Maldives and their history. In 2011 she graduated from the University of Vienna with a doctoral thesis in socio-cultural anthropology on Reproductive Tourism. Currently she studies natural and man-made crisis in the Indian Ocean World and the biosocial impact of inherited blood disorders. She thereby investigates with a comparative ethnographic approach – in close cooperation with local clinics and local as well as international patient advocacy organizations alike – dimensions of remoteness and health equity in the Republic of Maldives and Austria. She has co-edited five books, and some of her main publications have come out in high profile academic formats, such as the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, Current History, or Asia Pacific Viewpoint.
Main research areas
- medical anthropology
- biosocial impact of inherited blood disorders (thalassaemias and sickle cell disease)
- health and disease in island cultures
- health landscape and history of the Maldive Islands
- health-related mobilities
- human-non human interactions
PROJECTS (LEADER)
PROJECT (COLLABORATOR)
Selected Publications
Selected Publications
Eva-Maria Knoll. “How the Maldives Have Navigated Disease and Development.” Current History 120, no. 825 (2021): 152-58. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2021.120.825.152
Campbell, Gwyn and Eva-Maria Knoll, ed. 2020. Disease Dispersion and Impact in the Indian Ocean World. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030362638
Eva-Maria Knoll. “Inherited Without History? Maldive Fever and its Aftermath”. In Disease Dispersion and Impact in the Indian Ocean World, edited by Gwyn Campbell and Eva-Maria Knoll, 255-284. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030362638
Eva-Maria Knoll. “The Maldives as an Indian Ocean Crossroads.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. New York: Oxford University Press. Article published October 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.327
Eva-Maria Knoll. “Considering the Island Capital Male’ as a Hub for Health-related Mobilities.” In Connectivity in Motion: Island Hubs in the Indian Ocean World, edited by Burkhard Schnepel and Edward A. Alpers, 319-43. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59725-6_13
Eva-Maria Knoll. “Blood and Other Precious Resources: Vulnerability and Social Cohesion on the Maldive Islands.” In Small Countries.Structures and Sensibilities, edited by Ulf Hannerz and Andre Gingrich, 213-35. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
Eva-Maria Knoll. “Archipelagic Genes: Medical Travel as a Creative Response to Limitations and Remoteness in the Maldives.” In Special Issue: International Medical Travel and the Politics of Transnational Mobility in Asia, edited by Heng Leng Chee, Andrea Whittaker, and Brenda S.A. Yeoh. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 58, no. 2 (2017): 148-61 DOI/10.1111/apv.12157