Faculty
Ambar Basu
Professor & Department Chair
CONTACT INFORMATION
Email
Office: CIS 3054
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Ambar Basu writes on and about the intersections of culture, power, and communication in marginalized health settings. His research and teaching focuses on material and discursive dimensions of inequity and in-access in the context of global capital formations. With particular emphasis on theorizing culture as a site of social change, his scholarship documents and analyzes narratives about health that emerge from dialogue between his self (as the researcher), and research participants.
Dr. Basu’s scholarship embraces a mix of methods such as critical ethnography and autoethnography, and highlights the implications of knowledge production in collaboration with marginalized communities. Self-reflexivity is an integral lens/method that shapes his work.
Dr. Basu has served as Senior Editor for Health Communication, and co-edits a Routledge book series titled Critical Cultural Studies in Global Health Communication.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS:
Sastry, S., Siegenthaler*, B., Mukherjee*, P., Raheem, S.A*., and Basu, A. (2003). The (mis)uses of community: A critical analysis of public health communication for COVID-19 vaccination in the United States. Human Communication Research, doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad018
Stanley, L*., & Basu, A. (2023). Chemical jail”: Culture-centered theorizing of carcerality in methadone maintenance treatment and addiction recovery in the U.S. Journal of Applied Communication Research, doi: 10.1080/00909882.2023.2180770
Basu, A., & Mukherjee, P*. (2022). India’s COVID vaccine gestures: From maitri to coloniality. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 19(2), 134-139, doi: 10.1080/14791420.2022.2064529
Robb, J.S., & Basu, A. (2022). Survival against odds: Undocumented immigrants and communication about policies and access to health care in the United States. In D.K.D. Kim, & G.L. Kreps (Eds.), Global Health Communication for Immigrants and Refugees: Cases, Theories, and Strategies (pp. 48-62). New York: Routledge
Basu, A., Ketheeswaran, N*., & Cusanno, B. R*. (2022). Localocentricity, mental health and medical poverty in communication about sex work, HIV and AIDS among trans women engaged in sex work. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 24(1), 125-137, doi: 10.1080/13691058.2020.1817562
Basu, A., Spieldenner, A.R., & Dillon, P.J. (2021). Post-AIDS Discourse in Health Communication: Sociocultural Interpretations. New York, NY: Routledge.
Sastry, S., Zoller, H.M., & Basu, A. (2021). “Doing” Critical Health Communication. A Forum on Methods. Frontiers in Communication (https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/7691/doing-critical-health-communication-a-forum-on-methods).
Basu, A. (2020). The politics of health and healthcare: Communicating about health in a Presidential election year. Communication Matters: The NCA Podcast. https://natcompodcast.podbean.com/e/bonus-the-politics-of-health-and-healthcare-communicating-about-health-in-a-presidential-election-year/
RESEARCH AREAS
Health Communication, Culture, Postcolonial & Subaltern Studies