Making the North – Disease Control and the Construction of Northern Ghana, 1902-1957

Key information

Date
Time
5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
Venue
Faber Building, 23/24 Russell Square
Room
FG01

About this event

David Bannister, PhD candidate History, SOAS

From its incorporation into Britain's Gold Coast colony in 1902 – when it was called the Northern Territories Protectorate - northern Ghana stood in an economically and politically peripheral relationship to the southern Gold Coast and the metropole. Represented in official discourse as a place of statelessness, administrative recalcitrance and magic – and as a migrant labour reserve essential to the Gold Coast economy - the north experienced a distinct pattern of administration and development. It also experienced a distinct pattern of disease prevalence, and resultant issues of public health. As part of a longer study on the political economy of disease and state-run healthcare in northern Ghana over the 20th century, this presentation examines the construction of the region in light of sources on colonial-era disease control. It discusses the effects of its labour-reserve status, the transition to Native Administration, and of international developments far-removed from West Africa, in shaping disease control over the colonial period. Conversely, the paper examines how disease prevalence shaped administrative conceptions of the north

Organiser: Dr Marie Rodet

Contact email: mr28@soas.ac.uk