In 2012 India’s flagship public cancer hospital, Tata Memorial in Mumbai, responded to the rapidly growing number of cancer patients, some of them dying in the queue while waiting to see a doctor. Supported by eight other large cancer centres in the public sector and funded by the Government of India, the hospital launched a major initiative, the National Cancer Grid, to establish a network of cancer centres across the country. One major problem with cancer care in India is the concentration of facilities in only a few cities. The grid aims to decentralize, standardize and digitalize oncology and make it cheaper and more efficient.

The project takes the idea of the grid as its ethnographic object and investigates how it is put into practice. It examines the idea of the grid as a powerful imaginary for the remaking of oncology in India and shows how it matters for patients, practitioners and policy-makers.

This project is financially supported by a five year Wellcome Trust grant (2019-2024).