Prof Lenore Manderson

Lenore Manderson is a distinguished medical anthropologist whose scholarship bridges health, illness, and social life across diverse global contexts. With longstanding appointments in leading universities in Australia and internationally, her work has shaped critical debates in medical anthropology, global health, and social science approaches to medicine. Her research is widely recognized for its ethnographic depth and theoretical innovation.

Her recent publications highlight sustained engagement with ageing, dementia care, assisted reproduction, religion and health, gendered violence, food insecurity, and the ethics of care in sub-Saharan Africa. She examines how informal caregiving networks function in resource-constrained settings, how spiritual practices intersect with biomedical technologies, and how structural inequalities shape reproductive and sexual health. Creative and arts-based methodologies further demonstrate her commitment to decolonizing knowledge production.

Manderson’s scholarship emphasizes care as relational, embodied, and politically situated. By linking intimate experiences of illness and disability with broader systems of governance, labor, and resource distribution, she advances nuanced understandings of vulnerability and resilience. Her contributions continue to influence interdisciplinary research on health equity, social justice, and the lived realities of marginalized communities.