Robert Lorway, MA, PhD

Research summary

Robert Lorway’s research is concerned with the social study of global health interventions, particularly those designed to improve the lives of marginalized populations in Africa and Asia.

Theoretically, his work attempts to understand how contemporary global health interventions enact forms of governance that shape new modalities of citizenship and ‘make up’ communities and subjectivities for health service delivery schemes.

At the same time, he grapples with the concrete public health implications of these emergent forms of sociality. Robert’s theoretical engagements are firmly rooted in collaborative public health projects conducted with members of community-based organizations.

Research themes

• community-based participatory research
• data justice
• medical anthropology
• social studies of science and epidemiology

Research interests

• gender and sexuality
• global health
• health activism
• HIV prevention
• surveillance

Robert Lorway is a professor of community health sciences in the Institute for Global Public Health where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Intervention Politics and Social Transformation.

His research analyzes how intervention life unfurls around transnationally-mediated attempts to alleviate people’s suffering. He has written two books on the subject, Namibia’s Rainbow Project: Gay Rights in an African Nation, and AIDS Activism, Science and Community across Three Continents. In his current book project, Demonopolizing Science: Sex Worker Activism and Global Health, he examines how sex workers reassemble scientific knowledge to pinpoint and defy the undemocratic imperatives in attempts to govern the health of “key populations”.

Education

Doctor of Philosophy in Sociocultural Medical Anthropology, University of Toronto (2005)

Master's degree in Social Anthropology, Dalhousie University (1998)

Bachelor of Arts with Honors, St. Mary’s University (1995)

Awards

2020-2021:

• Annual CAHR-CANFAR Excellence in Research Award winner

2016-2021:

• Canada Research Chair, Tier II. Global Intervention Politics and Social Transformation

2016:

• Lamda Literary Awards Book Finalist in the Non-fiction category for "Namibia’s Rainbow Project," chosen among 900+ global entries.

2009-2014:

• CIHR New Investigator Award for HIV/AIDS Services/Population Health Research

2007-2008:

• CIHR Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for research on the relation between sexual subjectivity and HIV vulnerability among sexual minorities in Karnataka. Declined fellowship to take up assistant professorship at SFU.

2006-2007:

• Wenner-Gren Post-PhD Research Grant for research on sexual minority rights, science, and technologies of the self at the University of Manitoba.

2006-2008:

• International Centre for Infectious Diseases CIHR Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for research on sexual subjectivity and HIV prevention among MSM in South India at the University of Manitoba.

2008:

• SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.