Department/College/UnitSocial Sciences Division

TitleAssociate Professor

AffiliationFaculty

Other UCSC Campus AffiliationScience & Justice Research Center
Anthropology Department
John R. Lewis College
Global & Community Health
Genomics Institute

Web SiteProfessional
Professional

Primary Office LocationRachel Carson College Academic Building
325

Office HoursWinter 2025: 1-4pm, Tuesdays, by appt. via Zoom

Mail StopRachel Carson College Faculty Services

Biography, Education and Training

Ph.D. Medical Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley/University San Francisco, 2012

Summary of Expertise

James Doucet-Battle is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, Co-Director of the Science & Justice Research Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Doucet-Battle has an extensive background in medical anthropology, sociology, science and technology studies (STS), and African Diaspora Studies. His research infuses a growing literature in critical studies of science, medicine, and bioethics with ethnographic work analyzing health disparities and their remedial projects. He is the author of Sweetness in the Blood: Race, Risk, and Type 2 Diabetes (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), which explores the recruitment of African descent groups for cardiometabolic and genomic research. Doucet-Battle’s research contributes to the building of a new field of social scientific inquiry on disease risk, community health, and the cultural economies of science and medicine. 

Research Interests

Social sciences of medicine; power, subject-making, and citizenship; ethnography, political economy, grounded theory: diasporic and transnational Africa.

Selected Publications

Book

Sweetness in the Blood: Race, Risk, and Type 2 Diabetes (U Minn Press, March 2021)

Journal Articles 

2021   "The Case of Sparkle Rai: A Violent Patriarchal Narrative of Conspiratorial Kinship and Race." Feminist Anthropology 2(2): 271-283.

2018    “Ennobling the Neanderthal: Racialized Texts and Genomic Admixture.” 

Kalfou: A Journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies Vol. 5(1): 61-67.

2016    “Bioethical Matriarchy: Race, Gender, and the Gift in Genomic Research” Special Issue: "Nothing/More: Black Studies and Feminist Technoscience" Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 2(2): 1-28.

2016    “Sweet Salvation: One Black Church, Diabetes Outreach, and Trust” Transforming Anthropology 24(2): 125-135.

2007    “Race and Anthropology, Race in Anthropology: From Race to Ancestry, Gene to Genotype.” Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers Vol. 95: 1-6.