Translating the Body

For a period of seventy years, from 1896 to 1966, the Colonial Nursing Association (CNA) (renamed the Overseas Nursing Association [ONA] in 1919) recruited 8,400 women to work as nurses throughout the British Empire. The Association operated as a recruitment agency for the Colonial Office (CO), and during its operation, recruits were sent to every dominion and territory of the Empire. Initially, the CO adopted an arm's-length approach, but during World War II it became more direcdy involved in overseas nurse recruitment, establishing the Colonial Nursing Service (CNS) in 1940. The CNS formalized the government's policies in relation to nurse colonial officers who were recruited through the ONA. This development ensured parity for women in the colonial service, promoting mobility across colonies and creating the conditions for international reciprocity in nurse education and training. In effect, it established a British nursing empire, with nursing sisters leading education and training as well as implementing nursing practice in a range of clinical settings across the Empire. When the National Health Service (NHS) was established in Britain in 1948, it compounded the postwar shortage of trained nurses, creating an urgent demand for colonial nurses to staff the NHS, a trend that has continued to the present. In this article, we trace the history of overseas nurse recruitment in Britain through the involvement of the CO and its establishment of the CNS. We explore the notion that British nurses who were recruited to work in the colonies acted as agents of imperialism insofar as they embodied a British nursing empire and influenced nursing practice and professionalism internationally. We argue that the colonial history of nursing reflected wider historical colonial developments; in the rise and demise of the CNS, British overseas nursing arguably reached its zenith at the height of colonial rule and declined as colonies gained independence and fully trained indigenous nurses gradually replaced their British predecessors. It was the policy apparatus established by the CO for the unified CNS that arguably laid the foundations for the greater flow of international nurse recruitment from and to Britain, promoting greater ease of nurse migration, which would be crucial in staffing the NHS. Nursing and Imperialism Even a cursory excursion into the archives of bodies such as the CNA reveals the paucity of prior research into the relationship between nursing and empire. This stands in marked contrast to the explosion of interest in the role that science and medicine played in constructing representations of imperialism. The few existing studies based on the CNA archives1 tend to limit their scope to colonial Africa or attempt to locate the nurses within the discourse of colonial and imperial history.2 This has, perhaps, more to do with the current interest in revisionist histories of colonial Africa under British rule than in the history of nursing per se. Insofar as nursing has been absent from colonial and imperial history until these recent revisionist studies, they are a welcome inclusion and corrective to the record. Nonetheless, there has been little attention focused on the administrative and policy links between formal government involvement and international nurse recruitment. The fact that the CNA changed its name to the Overseas Nursing Association (ONA) in 1919 suggests that it sought to redefine itself outside the discourse of colonialism. This raises questions as to the position of nursing sisters in colonial social relations, with both the expatriate community and their indigenous patients and colleagues. The subject of imperial rule was distincdy male, so British nurses who were recruited in the early years of the CNA's operation were something of an anomaly; often, they were the only white women in the colony. For British nursing sisters, life in the colonies was often isolated and lonely; they had little support, except from the local committee, their main point of contact with the Association, which reinforced the Victorian values of the lady nurse of good character. …

A Digital History of Anglophone Demography and Global Population Control, 1915–1984

Syndemic anemia in British Malaya: An early global health encounter with hookworm and malaria co-infections in plantation workers

The St John's Ambulance Brigade established itself in British Malaya in the 1930s, as part of efforts to mobilise and train the colony's subjects for civil defence as the geo-strategic climate in the Pacific deteriorated. This article demonstrates how the provision of emergency medical care was a gendered and racialised undertaking in the colonial context. Unlike the military, comprising mainly European and ‘trusted’ ethnic Indian soldiers, the realm of ‘passive defence’ was identified as a feminised undertaking for women and ethnic Chinese men who were considered to be either too vulnerable or too disloyal to bear arms. The rapid advance of Japan's military in south-east Asia violently shattered such social boundaries, as many women and non-European volunteers found themselves exposed by retreating Allied forces to the Japanese offensive and took up duties at posts from which their European supervisors had been forced to desert. Mainstream military historiography has often been highly gendered towards what is considered as the male-dominated public domain of the battlefield. In this respect, the involvement of the St John's Ambulance Brigade reveals the process in which colonial ethno-gender identities and hierarchies were being established, appropriated and subsequently subverted by the exigencies of the war in British Malaya.

El artículo constituye un primer avance en el estudio de la profesionalización de la enfermería en la provincia de Santa Fe durante la primera mitad del siglo XX, atendiendo a sus vínculos con los procesos de consolidación de experticias en los campos de conocimiento sobre la salud, a la par que su conversión en saberes de Estado. Con este objetivo, el trabajo abordará la experiencia de la creación de la Escuela de Nurses y Visitadoras de Higiene de la Universidad Nacional del Litoral, con sede en la Facultad de Medicina de Rosario, primera experiencia nacional a nivel universitario de formación en enfermería. Ordenamos el trabajo a partir de tres ejes: por un lado, los antecedentes locales en torno a la formación en enfermería y las características del proyecto académico regional que caracterizó las primeras décadas de la Universidad; en segundo término, la particular relación entre proyecto universitario y política en la entreguerras en Santa Fe. Por último, la circulación transnacional de políticas sanitarias, en el marco de una nueva perspectiva sobre la “cuestión social”, el diálogo de la Fundación Rockefeller con la Universidad y el Estado provincial en este sentido. El trabajo concluye con la institucionalización de un proyecto político diverso, coincidente con el cierre de la experiencia universitaria cristalizada a inicios de 1940: la Escuela de Enfermeras en Salud Pública dependiente del Ministerio de Salud de la provincia, que iniciada en 1948, presentó notables diferencias tanto en términos formativos como en su administración y los expertos para ello convocados.

Established in 1913 in New York City, United States, the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) was the most influential philanthropic foundation sponsoring the biomedical and life sciences in the first half of the twentieth century. It emerged as a key policy maker in steering the course of biological progress as part of a global strategy to promote social stability. The RF also pioneered interdisciplinary activities, most notably the transfer of technologies from the exact sciences to biology, which played a role in the rise of molecular biology. The molecular revolution in biology and medicine, which reached a peak in the 1960s and is still unfolding, can be traced to the technocratic, international and interdisciplinary policies pursued by the RF in its interwar heydays. After Second World War, with the advent of massive governmental support for science, the RF phased out its programs in science and medicine, focusing instead on promoting the ‘Green Revolution’ in Third World agriculture.Key Concepts:The Rockefeller Foundation (RF) pioneered the international funding of scientific research in the interwar period, when many governments, especially in the United States and France, were not supporting such research.The RF's main motivation was to achieve social stability in the aftermath of First World War carnage, by emphasising the sciences of life (experimental and molecular biology) over the sciences of death (physics and chemistry).The RF's policy was interdisciplinary, revolving around the transfer of physico‐chemical technologies to biology, which often meant the entry of scientists trained in the exact sciences (mathematics, chemistry and physics) into biology.The main instrument of research funding that could have a long‐term impact was the ‘research grant’ given to selected grantees for extended 3‐ to 5‐year periods at a time. It was monitored through site visits by RF officers, their correspondence with grantees and summarised by both grantees and officers for RF's publicAnnual Reports.Although the RF President and its trustees had the formal authority to make research policy, the officers (Divisions Directors and Associate and Assistant Directors) who implemented that policy had considerable latitude because they had sole responsibility for selecting grantees, communicating with them on a routine basis and above all determining who could get long‐term and large‐scale support. Long‐term Division Directors, such as Alan Gregg (Medical Sciences) and Warren Weaver (Natural Sciences), had impact on bioscience.Bureaucratic constraints within RF such as the balance of power between trustees and officers; the aspirations of the President and his rapport with other Rockefeller philanthropic boards; boundary conflicts between the Natural Sciences and Medical Sciences Divisions as well as the historical context of the Great Depression shaped RF's approach to risk. This meant that institutionally powerful and entrepreneurial grantees were favoured over junior innovators, a trend that eventually distanced RF from the changing biological frontier, but smoothed the rise of ‘big science’ after Second World War.After Second World War, RF began to withdraw its support of science, which attracted by then large‐scale governmental support, focusing instead on agriculture in the Third World.

In the inter-war years a number of scholars studied and wrote about British politics in a way that marks them out as founding fathers of the discipline. The writers were academics, confined to a few universities, and did not regard themselves as political scientists. The article analyses two outlooks—collectivism and pluralism—which emerged to challenge the Westminster model. Many present features of a ‘British approach’ are evident in the work and the long-term impact on the discipline is assessed.

People in Motion: Introduction to Transnational Movements and Transwar Connections in the Anthropological and Genetic Study of Human Populations

ABSTRACTCases settled by colonial courts in British Malaya often revolved around issues of gender, class, race and colonial law. This article uses official and non-official archival records to explore the realities hidden behind the gender stereotypes conveyed in accounts given by colonial authorities and Indian nationalists of immorality and domestic violence. It makes a detailed investigation of alleged offences committed by husbands or partners of ‘deviant’ women, and illustrates factors influencing the attitudes of colonial courts, newspapers, members of the coolie community and Indian nationalists towards such incidents. Coolie women lived under oppressive conditions arising from colonial rule, capitalist exploitation and patriarchal control. In seeking to escape unsuitable marriages or oppressive relationships, women exhibited fleeting signs of agency, but neither colonial administrators nor nationalist leaders acknowledged the agency of women. The image of coolie women as passive victims allowed colonial administrators to present themselves as protectors of social order, and nationalist leaders to accuse colonial administrations of failing to preserve the social and moral welfare of their subjects. Illustrating the importance of gender in the political struggle between colonialism and nationalism, this article suggests the need for a sensitive understanding of how subjugated individuals, especially coolie women, reacted to such socio-political situations. In so doing, the article provides a nuanced and complex interpretation of social control as well as agency of subjugated individuals in colonial plantation contexts.

The rise of the field of public health during the progressive era led to a campaign by a number of American nurse leaders to reform nursing education. This campaign included: the formation of several national professional organizations; gaining the support of prominent medical officials, including those close to the Rockefeller Foundation, an influential philanthropic organization; and successfully arguing against the sending of public health nurses overseas during World War I. Following the war, the involvement of numerous American-backed organizations, including the Rockefeller Foundation (RF), the League of Red Cross Societies (LRCS), and the American Red Cross (ARC), in the training of nurses in Europe highlighted the numerous and conflicting ideals of American nurses in regards to nursing education during this period. The eventual success of one set of these ideas depended on the alignment of congruent ideals in the training of health care professionals with influential individuals and organizations.

Marketing Modernity: The J. Walter Thompson Company and North American Advertising in Brazil, 1929–1939

The University of Hong Kong faced bankruptcy within years of its establishment and was rescued by Loke Yew, a business magnate in British Malaya. Many of the students, too, came from Malaya while quite a few others were sponsored by Chinese government institutions. Tuition was an important source of income. The accoutrements of a university sprang up, such as a tennis club, a football club, a cricket club, a debating society and, of course, a medical society. In the 1920s, the Rockefeller Foundation endowed chairs in surgery, medicine as well as obstetrics and gynecology, providing a major boost to the faculty of medicine. The Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s created a wave of refugees into the British colony, and the population, which was under 850,000 in 1931, had doubled by 1941. The war drew closer to Hong Kong and, by December 8, 1941, when the university was holding examinations, Japanese bombs began falling on Hong Kong itself.

Change at the Rockefeller Foundation

Reviewed by: Cross-Cultural Exchange and the Colonial Imaginary. Global Encounters via Southeast Asia ed. by H. Hazel Hahn Nicolas Weber Cross-Cultural Exchange and the Colonial Imaginary. Global Encounters via Southeast Asia, Edited by H. Hazel Hahn. Singapore: NUS Press, 2019. 310 pp, ISBN 978-981-3250-06-2 (paper) Bringing together ten case-studies from across Southeast Asia, this engaging and thought-provoking edited volume offers new perspectives and insights into the social and cultural history of colonial and post-colonial Southeast Asia. The contributors address a wide range of questions and addresses the issues of cross-cultural exchange, cultural integration, adaptation, appropriation and resistance. They go beyond the usual research questions revolving around ideas of transmission and influence in a colonial context and question the binary of colonizer and colonized. The contributions are distributed into three broad categories: knowledge exchange, material and architectural exchange, and leisure exchange. Chapter 1, 'Nineteenth-century Portugal Through Other Eyes: The Diaries of Philiphê Bỉnh' by George Dutton (pp. 25–48) examines the diaries of a Vietnamese Jesuit priest, Philiphê Bỉnh, who resided in Portugal—mainly Lisbon—from 1796 to 1833. In his diaries, Bỉnh provides unique and dispassionate accounts of Portugal, [End Page 210] its institutions and foodways in particular, as seen from the perspective of a young enlightened Northern Vietnamese. Unlike his Western counterparts, Bỉnh wrote to educate his readers with a very practical purpose and to serve as a travelogue for future Vietnamese visitors. Chapter 2, 'Collecting Malay Heritage: Scholarly Societies and Imperial Policy in British Malaya in the Early Twentieth Century' by Matthew J Shauer (pp. 49–74) examines the role played by a network of local and global intellectual societies in Malaya. These societies, such as the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, were dedicated to the preservation of Malay culture through the collection and sharing of ethnological information. The work of intellectual societies played a role in not only the preservation of the culture of the colonized but also in raising awareness among the circles of colonial power and promoting more 'culturally sensitive' governance. Chapter 3, 'Rituals and Power: Cross-Cultural Exchange and the Contestation of Colonial Hegemony in Indonesia', by Arnout H. C. van der Meer (pp. 75–104), examines how cross-cultural exchange both supported and undermined Dutch legitimacy in late colonial Java. The article illustrates how the Dutch adopted and employed elements of Javanese culture (such deference traditions, dress, symbols of power and architecture) to legitimize colonial authority in early 20th century Java. The subsequent rejection of this hybrid cultural system by young nationalists and their adoption of Western ways, speech and dress represented efforts to modernize and to challenge colonial authority. Chapter 4, 'Chinese' Screens in the Dutch East Indies' by Dawn Odell (pp. 107–130) examines an example of cultural appropriation in Indonesia: the Chinese screens known as yingpi and heaping. Transposed in European Batavian homes and challenging traditional East Asian conventions, these screens acquired a whole new meaning. They helped in defining a uniquely Batavian style. Chapter 5, 'Absent Narratives and Missing Jewels: Cultural Heritage of a Tamil Temple in Ho Chi Minh City' by H. Hazel Hahn (pp. 131–161) reconstructs the history of the Hindu Tamil Sri Thendayuthapani temple. This temple was established around 1880 by the Chettiar money lenders hailing from Tamil Nadu, India. With its startling syncretic characteristics and unusual vimana (tower over the sanctum), this temple encapsulates the rich and complex history of cross-cultural exchange in colonial Saigon. The article explores the impact of Tagore's visit to Saigon (1929) and changes in the perception of heritage and identity alongside Vietnamese and Indian perceptions of the temple, concluding with its contemporary use and status. Chapter 6, 'French Nhà Rường and a Vietnamese Palace for the Governor? Architectural Exchange in Colonial Vietnam' by Caroline Herbelin (pp. 162–186), examines the complex cultural exchanges between the colonizers and the colonized, and the mechanisms of cultural appropriation and cross-cultural exchanges through two case-studies: the Governor General's palace in Hanoi, and Vietnamese adaptation of 'French style' architecture by wealthy families...

According to white Scoutmasters in Malaya, ‘the peculiar difficulties of locality and climate’ necessitated certain proscriptions on Scout training for Malayans. Restrictions on the physical aspects of Scouting in Malayan jungles limited opportunities for Malayans to cultivate Scouting's idealised male figure of the frontiersman. At the same time, colonial discouragement of the ‘Anglicisation’ of indigenous Scouts effectively curtailed indigenous Malayan access to those ideals of masculinity which were in many respects dominant in the colonial context. Ironically, some of these Anglicised Scouting ideals of masculinity were borrowed from ‘native cultures’ or ’martial tribes’. The exchanges and appropriations of culture and masculinities through Scouting were therefore multi-directional and more complicated than imagined. This article examines how Scouting in Malaya functioned as a vehicle for and as a product of multiple colonial exchanges. It argues that colonial Scouting in Malaya introduced but also restricted Malayan access to certain ideals of masculinity. Additionally, it argues for a more nuanced analysis of localised Malayan appropriations and negotiations of colonial/imperial concepts introduced through the Scout Movement. In particular, through considering how Malayan Scouts ‘played Indian’, this article further suggests that Scout activities of ‘make-believe’ attracted Malayan Scouts because of the liberties attached to these bodily performances of idealised Anglicised masculinities.