Fighting Pandemics from Below. Global North-South Public Health Cooperation in the Middle East and North Africa, 1792-1942

This project aims to analyze the historical public health cooperation between the global north and south through the study of sanitary councils in MENA, revealing local agency's role in pandemic responses.

Subsidie
€ 2.000.000
2024

Projectdetails

Introduction

This project will recapture the lost archives and historical knowledge of international public health cooperation between the ‘global north’ and the ‘global south’ by analysing its first and longest-lasting instances: the sanitary councils in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Historical Context

Established in Tangier, Alexandria, Tunis, Istanbul, and Tehran, these unprecedented institutions strategised against waves of epidemics and pandemics between the 1790s and the 1940s. Their European, American, and native co-founders invented new models for fighting pandemics from below and stopping the diseases in their tracks.

Challenges Faced

They continually strove to overcome the familiar barriers to cooperation posed by:

  • Inter-imperial competition in a multipolar world
  • Economic inequities
  • Protests against quarantine restrictions
  • Racial and Orientalist biases

In this light, the councils constituted microcosms of the complex dynamics of north-south health cooperation that also need to be addressed urgently today.

Research Gap

However, to date, there has been no in-depth, comparative, and longitudinal analysis of their workings. This project will challenge the mainstream narratives by writing an entangled, rather than West-centric, history of health cooperation and by shifting the focus from top-down to bottom-up processes.

Objectives

It will determine what the preconditions for effective international public health cooperation in MENA were and hypothesise that rather than Great Power imposition or veiled imperialism alone, multifaceted reciprocal action induced and sustained sanitary internationalism on the ground.

Preliminary Findings

My preliminary data show that the agency of local actors and smaller and medium European powers in accrediting public health cooperation was more central than has been documented to date.

Methodology

This research will test my hypothesis by examining the councils’ activity, performance, legitimacy, and endurance, and by consulting archival sources in Europe, MENA, North America, and Russia.

Financiële details & Tijdlijn

Financiële details

Subsidiebedrag€ 2.000.000
Totale projectbegroting€ 2.000.000

Tijdlijn

Startdatum1-6-2024
Einddatum31-5-2029
Subsidiejaar2024

Partners & Locaties

Projectpartners

  • UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHTpenvoerder

Land(en)

Netherlands

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