To what extent do you agree with Warwick Anderson’s

Essay

To what extent do you agree with Warwick Anderson’s (2014: 381) contention that “biomedicine is constitutively colonial: that it derives from colonial practices, becomes a means of managing the colonial aftermath, and functions always in a multiply contested contact zone.”

The assessment question comes from Warwick Anderson’s 2014 article ‘Making global health history: the postcolonial worldliness of biomedicine’ in Social History of Medicine 27 (2). You should read this.

Anderson is a leading historian of Australian medicine. His take on much contemporary academic research into global health is – let’s say – quite grumpy.

“We bob along happily in a world of global flows, apparently, the current carrying us irresistibly forward into the future.” (p. 374). This is what he dismissively calls a “hydraulic” reading of history (p. 375).

He thinks we should resist the flow: “A postcolonial approach means we recognize how modern science and biomedicine are put together, assembled, on the terrain that various sorts of colonialism have worked over – whether in Asia, Africa or Europe.” (p. 381).

Emphasize the overarching issue in Anderson’s claim: that ‘hydraulic’ readings of the history of medicine over-emphasize the seeming inevitability and benevolent progress of modern science. Pushing back against this ‘hydraulic’ view requires going against the flow (thinking critically) and looking at the historical geographies of medical research.

Indicative ‘unpacking’ paragraph

Acknowledge Anderson

‘Anderson dismissively identifies a ‘hydraulic’ account of history that presents an over-simplistic narrative about medical research.’

Note the significance of his call

‘If we are to take modern calls to ‘decolonize’ history seriously, we need to take seriously Anderson’s call to critically read the history of medicine against the grain.’

Identify to what extent you will follow this call in the essay

‘In what follows, I examine the three different aspects of Anderson’s call for a history of medicine that takes serious the colonial dimension of medical research…’

The critical essay should engage with the historiographical, conceptual and empirical material thathas been provided in the lectures (I have attached).

Do not focus on one lecture’s material in isolation, but instead draw from a cross-cutting selection of ideas and examples in the answer.

Examine and interrogate the terms used by Anderson too, but also consider viewpoints that may be absent in this understanding of biomedicine.

Read the short essay ‘Decolonise science – time to end another imperial era’ by Rohan Deb Roy.

As you read the piece – and as you write some short reflective notes on the text – consider the following questions:

• To what extent was medicine a ‘weapon with which to secure imperial rule’?
• How do colonial legacies continue to shape scientific and global health work today?
• Why – and how – might we ‘decolonise’ science?

https://theconversation.com/decolonise-science-time-to-end-another-imperial-era-89189