Item – Theses Canada

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OCLC number
1362902453
Link(s) to full text
LAC copy
Author
Jobbitt, Rafaela,
Title
Medical practitioners and the colonial project : medicine, public hygiene, and the contested re-colonization of São Tomé and Príncipe, 1850-1926
Degree
Ph.D. -- Graduate Program in History, York University, September 2016.
Publisher
[Toronto, Ontario] : [York University], [2016]
Description
1 online resource (1 PDF file (vii, 274 pages))
Notes
Includes bibliographical references.
Author owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
Abstract
My dissertation analyzes the role that medicine played in the re-colonization of São Tomé and Príncipe from the mid-nineteenth century until 1926. Focusing in particular on the role that Portuguese medical practitioners assumed as agents of colonization, the dissertation will explore how many of the public health projects that these doctors proposed and attempted to implement met with limited success in the colony, in part because of the negative reception they faced on the part of the local inhabitants of São Tomé and Príncipe (both African and non-African), but mainly due to the weakness of the colonial medical service itself. It was this weakness, coupled with the agency that individuals possessed, that allowed for the persistence of folk or popular medical practices, particularly on the plantations and in the more remote parts of the colony. The lack of reach of the colonial medical service also opened up spaces for all sorts of individuals to pursue medical work. This was not a reflection of Portuguese colonial benevolence. Instead, the lack of resources at the disposal of the colonial medical service meant that medical practitioners in the colony could seize the opportunity to further their own careers within the service or outside of it. Consequently, the dissertation will problematize ideas concerning the supposed tolerance and openness of the Portuguese colonial medical service regarding local practices and practitioners.
Other link(s)
hdl.handle.net
yorkspace.library.yorku.ca
Subject
Médecine Histoire 19e siècle.
Médecine Histoire 20e siècle.
Modern history
Colonial medicine
Public health
Alternative medicine
Portuguese medical services
Folk medical practices
Healers
Midwives
Medical assistants
Public health officers
Plantation medicine
Public health campaigns