From vulnerability to immunization—A genealogy of early attempts to deal with the climate

Bibliographic Data

ID20153706
AuthorsTim Frewer (School of Geosciences University of Sydney Sydney Australia, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume37
Issue1
Pages43-58
Publication date2016-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSingapore Journal of Tropical Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0129-7619 • E-ISSN: 1467-9493
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/sjtg.12142
OpenAlexW2552940699
LanguageEN
References cited44

In an age of anthropogenic climate change, risk and vulnerability have become common parlance. Yet the histories of both concepts are bound up in the colonial project. This article attempts to give a brief genealogy of these concepts by considering their evolution within early colonial attempts to deal with the dangers and threats posed by a tropical climate. This article argues that British and French colonial writers and administrators began to understand the dangers associated with colonizing distant lands as distinct risks associated with living in a tropical climate. Tropical fevers, ecological devastation, famine and revolt in particular spurred on the development of new knowledge, which advanced understandings of the effects of the tropical climate both on European health and long‐term colonial ambitions. In turn the concept of a pernicious tropical climate that posed a biological threat to the health of Europeans came to play a major role in configuring prevailing notions of race, health and morality. Risk and vulnerability have been key discursive features of new knowledges and governmental technologies crafted in the context of colonialism to secure European rule over distant lands and people

Archaeology · Biology · Climate change · Colonialism · Context (archaeology) · Environmental ethics · Ethnology · Famine · Geography · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Vulnerability (computing) · Ecology · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law