Histories of the development of international public health in the twentieth century tend to be celebrations of achievements – whether the enrolling of an ever-widening number of nations in programs to improve health and prevent disease, the adoption of shared standards and measurements to track health status, or the circulation of health researchers and statesmen across national frontiers. Justified though it often was, the repeated sounding of trumpets may have relegated to the background “outsiders” in the international health arena.
What impact, we wonder, would factoring in “outsiders” make to the way we write the history of international public health? What can close study of “outsiders” tell us about the international system of public health – its rules (written and unwritten), its reach, and its commitment to inclusiveness.
These questions will form the basis for discussion in a working symposium on ‘Writing “Outsiders” into the History of International Public Health.’ The workshop will be held on Thursday 27th and Friday 28th October at Birkbeck, University of London.
The workshop is free and open to all. A limited number of spaces are available for both days of the workshop. To book a place, please email reluctant.internationalists@gmail.com. Full details of the workshop programme are outlined below.
THURSDAY, 27 OCTOBER
Introductions 09.30 – 10.00am
Panel 1: Giving and Taking 10.00 – 11.30am
Jessica Reinisch, The ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’: the political geography of UNRRA’s donating and receiving countries
Lion Murard, Ironies of Technical Assistance: Greece, Eastern Europe and Health Internationalism in the interwar period
Davide Rodogno & Thomas David, Fellows and Fellowships in Public Health: an overview and a focus on the case of China
Panel 2: Neither Centre nor Periphery: Soviet Russia in the inter-war years 12.00 – 1.30pm
Susan Gross Solomon, Making the case: the USSR in Geneva and New York
Johanna Conterio, Socialist Design around the Black Sea
Sarah Marks, Czechoslovakia as insider and outsider in early Cold War era
Panel 3: Public Health in ‘Outsider’ States 2.30 – 4.00pm
David Brydan, Franco Spain as outsider and insider
Paul Weindling, Germany as an outsider in international health under Nazism
Maria Zarifi, Public health and the construction of Greece
FRIDAY, 28 OCTOBER
Panel 4: Inclusion and Exclusion in International Health Networks 10.30am – 12.00pm
Jessica Pearson-Patel, Colonial Politics of Global Public Health
Dora Vargha, Insiders and outsiders in the WHO
Ana Antic, Communist medicine and psychiatry and its links to the global South
Final Roundtable: Internationalism and Public Health 12.00 – 1.30pm
What difference does adding outsiders make to the way we write the history of public health? How does it change the writing of international history?
Patricia Clavin
Peter Jackson
Paul Weindling
Patrick Zylberman