Dr. Alana Helberg-Proctor is an interdisciplinary social scientist and Assistant Professor in the Health, Care and the Body programme group at the UvA Department of Anthropology. In her work, she focuses on diversity and inequality in healthcare and medical science. She investigates how 'race' and 'ethnicity' appear in biomedical research, health policy, and healthcare in the Netherlands and Europe. More specifically, she explores how scientific and technological practices in care and medicine are intertwined with society, politics, cultural values, and context.

Alana started her interdisciplinary academic career and education at The New School in New York City, where she obtained her BA (Liberal Arts) and MA (Global Political Economy). Upon completing her MSc in Public Health and Ph.D. at Maastricht University in 2017, she was appointed as an Assistant Professor at Maastricht University in the Department of Health, Ethics, and Society. In addition, she was a post-doc in the UvA RaceFaceID project and guest lecturer at the University of Amsterdam Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences. In 2021 she was awarded the Marie Curie Sklodowska Fellowship research grant, with which she was a post-doc in the Life Sciences & Society Lab at KU Leuven's Sociology Department in Belgium (Sep 2021-Dec. 2022). Alana joined the UvA Department of Anthropology in her current role in 2023. In 2024 Alana won a tender from the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) to explore the present-day impact of the Trans-Atlantic colonial history and slavery on the health of descendants of those who were enslaved and the Dutch healthcare system. Alana serves as PI for this project and is supported by a research assistant and a team of experts including UvA colleague Prof. dr. Amade M’charek. 

Expertise and research fields

• Science and Technology Studies
• Critical Race and Ethnicity Studies 
• Anthropology of Medicine
• Postcolonial Science Studies
• Global Health
• Trans-Atlantic colonial history and slavery

Relevant links

• Research group Health Care and the Body

Research methods

• Ethnography
• Interdisciplinary research
• Qualitative document analysis
• Interpretive policy analysis
• Participatory action research

Research grants and honours

• 2024 VWS MVO Tender Gezondheidseffecten van slavernij (€74,000)
• 2021 European Commission Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (€267,480)
• 2017 SWOL/Universiteitsfonds Limburg Subsidie (subsidy to organise a 1-day symposium)
• 2012 UM CAPHRI Philipsen Award (category: Best Scientific Publication) 
• 2010 Tuition Fellowship, NiNsee Summer School on Black Europe 
• 2009 4S Society for Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting Travel Award 
• 2008 Maastricht University Kootstra pre-PhD Fellowship 
• 2006 The New School for Social Research Tuition Scholarship 
• 2006 Eugene Lang College Alumni Coalition Award 
• 2005 Fellowship, The New School Democracy and Diversity Graduate Institute: Transregional Centre for Democratic Studies
• 2003 Tishman Environmental Merit Scholarship 
• 2002 Eugene Lang College Tuition Scholarship (four-year period, 2002 – 2006)

Current cooperation with organisations and/or persons

• ZonMw-commissielid Dementie (expertise Diversiteit en Inclusie (2022 - present)
• ZonMw-commissielid Actieonderzoek dementiezorg Caribisch deel van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (2024)
• KWF commissielid Themacall Inclusieve Palliatieve Zorg (2023 - 2024)

Bachelor's in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology courses:

• Anthropologies of Black Europe
• Race and Physical Anthropology 

Master's in Cultural and Social Anthropology courses:

• Decolonial Praxis: Racialized and Gendered Bodies
• Thesis supervision

Research Master's Social Sciences course:

• Race, Sex, and Postcolonial STS
• Thesis supervision

Master’s in Medical Anthropology and Sociology:

• Materialities in Practice
• Thesis supervision

PhD supervision

• PhD co-supervisor of ethnographic study on forensic identification techniques as they relate to race and the making and dissemination of facial composites (PhD-candidate Ryanne Bleumink, promotor Prof.dr. Amade M’charek)
• PhD co-supervisor of ethnographic study on the governing of people living with HIV and their assisted reproductive possibilities (PhD-candidate Ellen Conlon, promotor Dr. Bregje de Kok, co-promotor Dr. Nafis Hasan)
• PhD co-supervisor of ethnographic study following the epigenetic frameworks for maternal and child health in Portland, Oregon to explore biosocial modelling practices and research (PhD-candidate Andie Thompson, promotors Dr. Tina Harris & Prof. dr. Anita Hardon, co-promotor Emily Yates-Doerr).

De Nederlandse trans-Atlantische slavenhandel en slavernij heeft ruim tweehonderd jaar geduurd, vanaf het einde van de zeventiende eeuw tot 1873. Op 1 juli 1863 werd de slavernij bij wet afgeschaft in de koloniën van het Nederlands Koninkrijk, Suriname en het Caraïbische deel van het Nederlandse Koninkrijk. Om de 'schade' van de afschaffing voor de plantagehouders te beperken, werden tussen 1863 en 1873 tot slaaf gemaakte mensen nog 10 jaar lang op de plantages gehouden om te werken onder staatstoezicht. Tijdens het Herdenkingsjaar Slavernijverleden (1 juli 2023 tot 1 juli 2024) is er aandacht besteed aan het herdenken van de afschaffing 150 jaar geleden. Tijdens dit jaar was er ook aandacht voor de huidige doorwerking van het slavernijverleden en de Nederlandse en koloniale geschiedenis. Het project Gezondheidseffecten van slavernij stelt zich ten doel de doorwerking van de Trans-Atlantische slavernij en koloniale geschiedenis op de gezondheid van nazaten en zorg te onderzoeken, en wordt uitgevoerd in opdracht van het Ministerie van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport (VWS). De hoofd- en subvraag binnen dit project luiden: Wat is de huidige staat van kennis over de doorwerking van de slavernij en koloniale geschiedenis op de mentale en fysieke gezondheid van nazaten en de zorg in Nederland? Met subvraag: Welke beleidsaanbevelingen en handelingsperspectieven kunnen op basis van de beschikbare kennis gegeven worden? Om deze vragen te beantwoorden wordt deskonderzoek en veldonderzoek verricht: een literatuurstudie naar de impact van het slavernij- en koloniaal verleden op mentale en fysieke gezondheid en zorg in Nederland, alsook veldonderzoek bestaande uit interviews en focusgroepen met deskundigen en betrokkenen.

Funding: Ministerie van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport (VWS)

Project period: Jan 2025 – Dec 2025

Team: Dr. Alana Helberg-Proctor (principal investigator), Drs. Aslihan Öztürk (research assistant)

Expert tegenlezers: Prof. dr. Amade M’charek (UvA), Dr. Esther Captain (KITLV), Drs. Glenn Helberg (psychiater), Dr. Joyce Browne (UMCU/UU), Prof. dr. Jet Bussemaker (EUR)

Begeleidingscommissie: Amber Kegel (voorzitter, VWS), Marlin Wagtmans (VWS), Pascal Nieskens (VWS), Decontee Shilue (VWS), Bob Harms (VWS), Dr. Petra Verdonk (VU), Prof. dr. Henry de Vries (AMC), Dr. Jim Zeegelaar (Flevoziekenhuis)

After World War II, the term ‘race’ was rightfully considered highly problematic in many European countries. As such, other terms, concepts, euphemisms, and even policies prohibiting any reference to  ‘race’ were introduced. “Migration background”, “country of origin”, and “allochtoon/autochthon” are several examples of terms used in different European countries. Remarkably, however,  ‘race’ does remain used in European medicine and health care – and even seems to be making a comeback in inclusion and diversity initiatives. Highly interesting is thus that currently, Dutch and European care professionals are using race-based healthcare in national contexts where  ‘race’ is otherwise obscured or even illegal to use, such as in France. All the while, critical reflection of why and how exactly this contested construct  ‘race’ is currently being used in care in different European countries remains largely unscrutinised. Within the AISSR Impulse Grant, we examine ‘race’ in Dutch healthcare, specifically in reproductive care in the Netherlands.

Project papers:

Paper 1 Exploring haunting pasts to decolonize the present:  ‘race’ as a ghost variable in obstetrics and gynaecology: While the race science of the eighteenth and nineteenth century is relegated to phenomena of the past, language, ideas, and objects from this period remain circulating in the present. In this project we explore the presence of racial pelvimetry science of the eighteenth and nineteenth century as it appears in and haunts present-day obstetrics and gynaecology. Karkazis and Jordan-Young (2020) evoke the notion of haunting, to conceptualize  ‘race’ as a ghost variable to trace “ideas of ‘race’ in particular niches of science, technology, and medicine where it is submerged and disavowed, yet wields power”. Adjacent to the archival research already being conducted by Paul Wolff Mitchell and Laurens de Rooy on racial pelvimetry science of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, Bahareh Goodarzi (post-doc) and Alana Helberg-Proctor will follow this racial pelvimetry science as it appears in obstetrics and gynaecology textbooks and scientific research in the twentieth and twenty-first century. Method: We will conduct content analysis of recent publications (twenty-first century) and Dutch historical obstetric textbooks found in medical archives such as Het Trefpunt voor de Medische Geschiedenis in Nederland (TMGN, the largest medical history library in the Netherlands) on Urk and research publications (twentieth century) we intend to explore what  ‘race’ is made to be herein and, importantly, how these present- day practices relate to the racial pelvimetry science of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Some of the preliminary archival research to identify and locate Dutch historical obstetric textbooks for this project has already been conducted.

Paper 2 “Kaukasisch ja/nee”: VBAC and the racialization of risk in obstetrics: Vaginal birth after caesarean (VBAC) prediction models are used to predict the chance of successful vaginal birth after a previous caesarean delivery and are used for obstetric clinical decision-making and patient counselling on the decision for VBAC (trial of labour) or an elective repeat caesarean section (ERCS). Most all models include a variable related to ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’, yet the inclusion of these variables and their use in European practice is understudied and highly problematic. Namely, ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ here serve as proxies for a plethora of social, economic, historical and  other risk factors, but are in clinical practice essentialized into biological types. Method: To gain understanding of how racialization occurs in Dutch medical context we will firstly document which VBAC models are currently being used in the Netherlands, and examine how these models were developed and the racial and ethnic variables included in them. Secondly, through focus groups with obstetric health care professionals using these models we will examine what these racial and ethnic terms and categories mean to health care professionals and how patients are categorized into them.

Funding: UvA Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) Impulse Grant 2025

Project period: Sep 2025 – Sep 2026

Team:

Project leader: Dr. Alana Helberg-Proctor

Post-doc: Dr. Bahareh Goodarzi is a midwife lecturer and assistant professor (0.4 FTE) at the Department of Midwifery Science Amsterdam UMC, Vumc / AR&D / UMCG / AVAG, InHolland. Goodarzi received her PhD in 2023 on risk selection in maternal and newborn care. The focus of her current work is reproductive justice, obstetric racism, and medical racialization.

External advisor: Dr. Laurens de Rooy is a historian of science and medicine specialized in history of anatomy, zoology and anthropology, focused on the collections of Museum Vrolik, the Anatomical Museum of the University of Amsterdam. Laurens is director of Museum Vrolik and an Assistant Professor of Medical History in the Department of Medical Biology at the Amsterdam University Medical Centre. Laurens is also a PI of the NWA project “Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums.”

External advisor: Dr. Paul J. Wolff Mitchell is an independent archival researcher and anatomical collections specialist. Paul’s specializations include his research on the history of racial science and anatomical collections, focusing on decolonization and restitution. He was a postdoctoral researcher in the Health, Care and the Body programme group at the University of Amsterdam, Department of Anthropology, and part of the Dutch Research Council supported project, “Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums.”