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Health and socialism: of shortages and solidarity

This workshop discusses how notions of international solidarity and material and financial shortages impacted socialist global health.

Health and socialism: of shortages and solidarity

The research project “Socialist Medicine: an Alternative Global Health History”, funded by ERC Starting Grant SOCMED, explores the emergence of global health in the 20th century, primarily focusing on the socialist world. This workshop specifically discusses how notions of international solidarity and the challenges posed by material and financial shortages impacted global health within socialist contexts. During the Cold War, the socialist world was often depicted as grappling with shortages in stark contrast to the West’s abundance. Socialist nations confronted daily shortages while navigating the global scarcity of medical supplies. Additionally, they extended aid to decolonizing states, nurturing socialist solidarity and pursuing material benefits. Within this workshop, historians and social scientists present their research, examining both local and global histories of medical aid, collaboration, and exchange while considering the pivotal role of solidarity and shortages in shaping socialist global health.

For online participants, we provide a live stream of our workshop, which takes place at the Harnack Haus in Berlin Dahlem.

Programm

Monday, 09.10.2023

08:30
Welcome and introduction

09:00–10:30
Liberation movements and socialist medical solidarity
Discussant: Luis Aue (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Arianna Pasqualini (Universitá degli Studi di Bologna): From Cassinga to East Berlin: Namibians under socialist care

Jelena Đureinović (University of Vienna): Partisans, Prosthetics and Decolonisation: The Flow of Medical Aid from Yugoslavia to Liberation Movements in Africa

Jan Adamec (independent scholar): “Young, inexperienced doctors who didn’t know anything yet…”: Czechoslovak medical team in the Korean War (1952–1953) between professionalism, internationalism and orientalism

11:00–12:30
Eastern European experts and health internationalism
Discussant: Maria Pirogovskaya (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science)

Eva Rogaar (University of Amsterdam): Developing Family Health in Central Asia and Beyond: Uzbek Experts, Transnational Networks, and Medical Knowledge during the Cold War

Dora Vargha (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin / University of Exeter / MPIWG): Formalising socialist international health: from aid to diplomacy

Roderick Bailey (University of Oxford): Cold wars and cadavers: Western perceptions of a Soviet solution to blood shortages

14:00–15:30
Professionalized Socialist Internationalism
Discussant: Pascal Grosse (Charité)

John Nott and Marlee Tichenor (University of Edinburgh): Epidemiology and African socialism

Luis Aue (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin): Forging Tropical Medicine in the GDRMedical Internationalism between International Solidarity, Medical Whiteness, and Shortages

Severyan Dyakonov (New York University): The Soviet Red Cross in the International Red Cross Movement during the Cold War

16:00–17:30
Keynote
Bogdan Iacob (“Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History in Bucharest-Romanian Academy): Socialist Medicine Travels: The Challenge of Postcolonial Spaces

Tuesday 10.10.2023

09:00–10:30
Socialist Ideas and health
Discussant: Dora Vargha (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin / University of Exeter / MPIWG)

Frédéric Keck (CNRS/LAS): French socialism, “primitive mentality” and preparedness: a genealogy of the Lévy-Bruhl family

Nicole Albrecht (Birbeck, University of London): Dr Andrija Štampar: The Significance of Peasant Internationalism for Understanding Socialist Medicine and Solidarity

Gabriela Alves Miranda (COC / FIOCRUZ): The Journal Atualidades Médicas e Biológicas and Soviet Medicine – To make the “few” become the “many” (Brazil, 1951–1960)

11:00–12:30
Pharmaceutical production: innovation and between shortages and solidarity
Discussant: Alila Brossard Antonielli (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin / Cermes3)

Piotr Skalski (Poznan University of Medical Sciences): Foreign cooperation of the pharmaceutical industry in the Polish People’s Republic: a case study

Fatima Elfitouri (King’s College): TBA Cuban Pharma

Luiz Villarinho (ENSP / Fiocruz): Antibiotics in the fight against tuberculosis in Brazil before the 1990s: social medicine and pharmaceuticalization

14:00–15:30
Practices and politics of medical solidarity
Discussant: Álvaro Morcillo Laiz (Freie Universität)

Andrea Azizi Kifyasi (University of Dar es Salaam): “China, a Friend in Need”. Disentangling the Contexts for China’s Medical Assistance in Tanzania, 1961–1971

Alila Brossard Antonielli (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin / Cermes3): TBC Medical cooperantes in Mozambique, adapting and contributing to a new socialist health system 1975–1984

Gourav Krishna Nandi (Yale University): Reframing Rajkumari Amrit Kaur: Worldmaking through postcolonial health diplomacy in the 1950s

15:30–16:30
Concluding remarks / discussion