Gideon Lasco is a Filipino physician, medical anthropologist, and public intellectual whose work focuses on public health, drug policy, and contemporary health crises in Southeast Asia. Based in Manila, he serves as a professorial lecturer at the University of the Philippines Diliman and as a research fellow at Ateneo de Manila University. He was also a Takemi Fellow in International Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Lasco’s academic background combines medicine, anthropology, and the history of science. He earned his medical degree from the University of the Philippines Manila before pursuing graduate studies in Medical Anthropology and completing a PhD in the field at the University of Amsterdam. He also obtained a master’s degree in the History of Science from Harvard University, with a focus on the history of medicine. His interdisciplinary scholarship explores the intersections of health, politics, culture, the body, and social inequality.
Beyond academia, Lasco is widely known as a public writer and columnist who bridges social science perspectives with everyday public issues in the Philippines. His writings address topics such as the COVID-19 pandemic, public health governance, popular culture, nationalism, and environmental concerns. He is also the author of several influential books, including The Philippines Is Not a Small Country. Outside his scholarly work, Lasco is an active mountaineer and environmental advocate, often connecting his hiking experiences with anthropological reflections on society and modern life.
Amita Baviskar
is an Indian sociologist and one of the leading scholars in environmental studies, political ecology, and development studies in South Asia. She is currently Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology & Anthropology at Ashoka University. Her work focuses on the cultural politics of environment and development, especially in relation to ecology, urbanization, class, and social inequality in contemporary India. She is widely recognized for examining how environmental issues intersect with questions of power, citizenship, and social justice.Baviskar studied economics at the University of Delhi before completing a master’s degree in sociology at the Delhi School of Economics and a PhD in Development Sociology at Cornell University. Throughout her academic career, she has taught and conducted research at several major institutions, including the Delhi School of Economics and the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi. She has also been a visiting scholar at institutions such as Stanford University, Yale University, and the University of Oxford.
Her scholarship is especially influential in studies of environmental conflict, urban ecology, and indigenous communities. One of her best-known books, In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts over Development in the Narmada Valley, critically examines the social and ecological consequences of large-scale dam development in India. Other important works include Waterscapes, Contested Grounds, and Uncivil City. Baviskar received the Infosys Prize in Sociology in 2010 for her contributions to understanding environmental movements and the politics of development in modern India.