1st Edition
The Geopolitics of Health in South and Southeast Asia Perspectives from the Cold War to COVID-19
This book analyses the complexity of South and Southeast Asia in international health, taking into account the impact of the geopolitics of the Cold War on the development of public health and development in the regions.
In light of the recent health pandemic, which has mobilized experts and governments and led to a securitized approach to global health, this book offers a regional approach to global health histories. The chapters provide case studies ranging from the Cold War to the present time and covering countries from across South and Southeast Asia. Contributors analyse issues related to disease control, an adjunct to wider Cold War geopolitics. They also examine the responses of regional organizations, particularly the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), towards COVID-19. Collectively, the book illustrates how narrowly-conceived global health programs implemented by aid agencies failed to account for the local, national or regional contexts.
Situating health in South and Southeast Asia in broader global contexts, the book will be a valuable contribution to the History of Medicine and Health and Political Economy of South and Southeast Asia.
Introduction, Vivek Neelakantan; 1. "The Monsoon Asia of Geographers": The Cold War Beginnings of the WHO Regional Office for Southeast Asia (SEARO), 1948-60, Vivek Neelakantan; 2. The Cold War, Non-Alignment and Medicine in India: The Case of Medical Education and Pharmaceutical Self-Sufficiency, 1947-57, Shirish Kavadi; 3. Malaria Eradication and Modernization in Maldives and Sri Lanka, 1941-84, Eva-Maria Knoll; 4. Thailand’s Rural Doctor Society in the 1970s and 1980s and its Struggles to Improve Health in the Countryside, Davisakd Puaksom; 5. Civic Space in Southeast Asia in the Time of COVID-19: The Case of Maritime Southeast Asia, Khoo Ying Hooi; 6. Neighbors Rally Against the Virus: The Case of SAARC, Vivek Neelakantan
Biography
Vivek Neelakantan is a Southeast Asian medical historian and a 2023 Brocher Visiting Fellow, sponsored by the Brocher Foundation, Switzerland. His current research investigates the origins of primary healthcare in Southeast Asia from a transnational perspective.
"This book is a welcome addition to the historiography of global health. Its unique focus on region-specific approaches to examining disease eradication allows it to historicise postcolonial nation-states, Cold War politics, and international aid organizations. The range of themes here; from primary health infrastructure in postcolonial India to querying the concept of erosion of civic space in ASEAN countries at the time of coronavirus epidemics, for instance, will interest research scholars as well as the curious general reader." -Nandini Bhattacharya, University of Houston, USA.
"This volume pioneers the field with an explicit argument for regional history to fill the gaps between global history and transnational and national history. The studies are comprehensive and informative on major issues of integration and divergence of regional history, illustrated by the policies and politics of public health from the Cold War to the pandemic of Covid-19." - Liping Bu, Alma College, Michigan, USA.
"[This book] brings together a series of works on the regional and national dimensions of global health policies and programmes. [...] this volume defends the regional approach as an action-oriented point of view: it is about reflecting on the successes and failures of regional integration in South and Southeast Asia, showing how ‘diversity of geography, history, and political systems have affected health outcomes across and within countries of both regions’ [...] this collection of works, most of them by researchers who not only carry out their research on Asia but do so from research centres in Asia, unequivocally places South and Southeast Asia at the centre of the world map." -Monica Saavedra, CRIA, Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia, Portugal, Social History of Medicine Vol. XX, No. XX
