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Security, Disease, Commerce

Ideologies of Postcolonial Global Health

Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 485, San Francisco, California 94143–0850, USA; fax: +1 415 476 6715;nbking{at}itsa.ucsf.edu

Public health in the United States and Western Europe has long been allied with national security and international commerce. During the 1990s, American virologists and public health experts capitalized on this historical association, arguing that ‘emerging diseases’ presented a threat to American political and economic interests. This paper investigates these arguments, which I call the ‘emerging diseases worldview’, and compares it to colonial-era ideologies of medicine and public health. Three points of comparison are emphasized: the mapping of space and relative importance of territoriality; the increasing emphasis on information and commodity exchange networks; and the transition from metaphors of conversion and a ‘civilizing mission’, to integration and international development. Although colonial and postcolonial ideologies of global health remain deeply intertwined, significant differences are becoming apparent.

Key Words: emerging diseases • exchange • information • networks • pharmaceuticals • public health

Social Studies of Science, Vol. 32, No. 5-6, 763-789 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/030631270203200507


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