The Colonial Politics of Global Health: France and the United Nations in Postwar Africa

by Jessica Lynne Pearson

Overview

In The Colonial Politics of Global Health, Jessica Lynne Pearson explores the collision between imperial and international visions of health and development in French Africa as decolonization movements gained strength.

After World War II, French officials viewed health improvements as a way to forge a more equitable union between France and its overseas territories. Through new hospitals, better medicines, and improved public health, French subjects could reimagine themselves as French citizens. The politics of health also proved vital to the United Nations, however, and conflicts arose when French officials perceived international development programs sponsored by the UN as a threat to their colonial authority. French diplomats also feared that anticolonial delegations to the United Nations would use shortcomings in health, education, and social development to expose the broader structures of colonial inequality. In the face of mounting criticism, they did what they could to keep UN agencies and international health personnel out of Africa, limiting the access Africans had to global health programs. French personnel marginalized their African colleagues as they mapped out the continent’s sanitary future and negotiated the new rights and responsibilities of French citizenship. The health disparities that resulted offered compelling evidence that the imperial system of governance should come to an end.

Pearson’s work links health and medicine to postwar debates over sovereignty, empire, and human rights in the developing world. The consequences of putting politics above public health continue to play out in constraints placed on international health organizations half a century later.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674980488
Publisher:	Harvard
Publication date:	09/10/2018
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jessica Lynne Pearson is Assistant Professor of History at Macalester College.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations ix

Introduction 1

1 War, Citizenship, and the Limits of French Civilization 20

2 The United Nations and the Politics of Health 44

3 Between Colonial Knowledge and International Expertise 67

4 The World Health Organization Comes to Brazzaville 89

5 Family Health, France, and the Future of Africa 113

6 Fighting Illness, Battling Decolonization 141

Epilogue 164

Notes 177

Bibliography 227

Acknowledgments 247

Index 255

Editorial Reviews

Pearson’s deeply researched and elegantly written book demonstrates that international organizations played a defining role in reshaping empire in the postwar period. Her work compellingly argues that the United Nations and the World Health Organization provided templates for universal rights and health for all, even colonial subjects. The Colonial Politics of Global Health will be an invaluable addition to our understanding of the French Empire, decolonization, and global health initiatives.

Jennifer Johnson

A smart, persuasive study of one of the most influential chapters in the history of twentieth-century Africa. This impressive work poses an intriguing question: how did imperial powers in sub-Saharan Africa interact with new international humanitarian organizations providing oversight of colonial governance after World War II? Pearson is to be commended for taking on such a challenging topic and for telling a fascinating, human story in such an accessible way.

Alice L. Conklin

An important, thought-provoking book that uses global health as a prism through which to understand tensions between colonial powers and international organizations like the World Health Organization in late colonial Africa. Pearson skillfully shows how decolonization converged with a wide array of attempts to stem disease made by French doctors, colonial officials, and world health representatives in Africa.

Nancy Rose Hunt

[A] probing account…Focusing on the area of public health, Pearson shows that France sought to reap the benefits of the World Health Organization’s operations in Africa, even as it pursued its own health-care policies in its colonies. France’s efforts, Pearson argues, succeeded in maintaining French influence over UN policies in West Africa even after the country’s former colonies had won their independence.

Foreign Affairs - Nicolas van de Walle

Shows how the World Health Organization’s origins and development in Africa and the politics of the postwar period of decolonization were intimately intertwined.

Bulletin of the History of Medicine - Laura Jane McGough

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