Tanja Ahlin
Research Fellow
- Name
- Dr. T. Ahlin
- Telephone
- 071 5272727
- t.ahlin@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
- ORCID iD
- 0000-0002-2374-5326
Tanja Ahlin is an Anthropologist of Health and Technology, and a Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholar with a PhD from the University of Amsterdam.
Tanja Ahlin is an Anthropologist of Health and Technology, and a Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholar with a PhD from the University of Amsterdam.
As a recipient of the Veni grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO), she is investigating technology acceptance and resistance through the case of animal-shaped social robots in elder care. Her project, Paw Support, aims to support personalized long-term care, making space for new technologies as well as non-technological solutions to good care in times of scarce resources.
Previously, Tanja was a post-doctoral researcher in the 'Human Factor in New Technologies' at Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research, UvA. She is affiliated with the Center for Digital Anthropology, UCL, and is a Research Fellow the Amsterdam Institute of Global Health and Development (AIGHD).
She also has a Master's degree in Health and Society in South Asia from Heidelberg University (Germany), a Bachelors of Anthropology from Athabasca University (Canada) and a Bachelors of Translation (English, French, Slovenian) from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia).
Tanja's book Calling Family: Digital Technologies and the Making of Transnational Care Collectives (Rutgers University Press, 2023) explores how digital technologies shape family care at a distance when living in the same place is not the most feasible option.
Research Fellow
- Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
- Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology
- Ahlin T. & Mann A. (2025), Ambiguous animals, ambivalent carers and arbitrary care collectives: re-theorizing resistance to social robots in healthcare, Social Science & Medicine 365: 117587.
- Ahlin T. (2025), Field Events: Re-conceptualizing the Field Through Research with Digital Technologies: Springer Nature Singapore. 247-261.
- Ahlin T. (2025), Locating and Problematising the ‘field’ through digital technologies. In: Hammett D. & Holmes N. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Field Research: Routledge.
- Ahlin T., Sen K. & Pols J.l (2024), Telecare that works: lessons on integrating digital technologies in elder care from Indian transnational families, Anthropology and Medicine 31(3): 265-280.
- Voorst R. van & Ahlin T. (2024), Key points for an ethnography of AI: an approach towards crucial data, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11: 337.
- Ahlin T. (2023), Calling family: digital technologies and the making of transnational care collectives. Medical Anthropology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
- Cabalquinto E. & Ahlin T (2023), Researching (im)mobile lives during a lockdown: reconceptualizing remote interviews as field events, International Journal of Cultural Studies 26(6): 802-821.
- Ahlin T. & Hiddinga A. (2023), Technological socialities: the impact of information and communication technologies on belonging among deaf and hard‐of‐hearing people, Sociology Compass 17(5): e13068.
- Ahlin T. (2022), The unseen care work of nurses from Kerala. In: , Who Cares?: Health Workers, Care Extraction and Struggles over Health Care Work in India. New Delhi: Zubaan. 276-300.
- Cabalquinto E.C. & Ahlin T. (2021), Care within or out of reach: Fantasies of care and connectivity in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. In: Manderson L., Burke N.J. & Wahlberg A. (Eds.), Viral Loads: Anthropologies of urgency in the time of COVID-19. London: UCL Press. 344-361.
- Ahlin T. (2020), Frequent callers: “good care” with ICTs in Indian transnational families, Medical Anthropology 39(1): 69-82.
- Ahlin T. (2020), Eldercare at a Distance: On Remittances and Everyday Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Indian Transnational Families. In: Brosius C. & Mandoki R. (Eds.), Caring for Old Age: Perspectives from South Asia. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing. 213–235.
- Ahlin T. & Sen K. (2019), Shifting duties: becoming ‘good daughters’ through elder care practices in transnational families from Kerala, India, Gender, Place and Culture 27(10): 1395-1414.
- Ahlin T. & Li F. (2019), From field sites to field events: creating the field with information and communication technologies (ICTs), Medicine Anthropology Theory 6(2): mat.6.2.655.
- Ahlin T (2018), What keeps Maya from eating?: A case study of disordered eating from North India, Transcultural Psychiatry 55: 551-571.
- Ahlin T. (2017), Only near is dear? Doing elderly care with everyday ICTs in Indian transnational families, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 32(1): 85-102.
- Ahlin T., Nichter M. & Pillai G. (2016), Health insurance in India: what do we know and why is ethnographic research needed, Anthropology and Medicine 23: 102-124.
- Manderson L., Davis M., Colwell C. & Ahlin T. (2015), On secrecy, disclosure, the public, and the private in anthropology: an Introduction to supplement 12, Current Anthropology 56(S12): S183-S190.
- Ahlin T. (2013), Prehajanje praks zdravljenja in z zdravjem povezanih konceptov med kulturami in kontinenti (Travelling of Healing Practices and Health-Related Concepts across Cultures and Continents): Joga v Evropi, anoreksija v Aziji (Yoga in Europe, Anorexia in Asia), Glasnik SED 53(1-2): 25-31.
- Ahlin T. (2012), Of food and friendship: the methods to understanding eating disorders in India, Medische Anthropologie. Journal about Health and Culture 24(1): 41-56.
- Ahlin T. (2011), Technology and cultural (r)evolution: Can telemedicine give power to the patients? , Curare 34(3): 165-172.