Epidemics in the Past and Now
A roundtable on colonial and postcolonial history
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4549286 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Clare Anderson (0000-0002-5086-4865), David Arnold (0000-0002-8781-4095, Johns Hopkins University Press), Jayme De Barros (0000-0002-0783-4337, Johns Hopkins University Press), Juanita De Barros, Luka Bair (Johns Hopkins University Press), Robert Peckham (0000-0001-8370-609X, Johns Hopkins University Press) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2021-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1532-5768 • E-ISSN: 1532-5768 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/cch.2021.0003 |
| OpenAlex | W3163613295 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
I'd like to open our discussion by asking how (if at all) COVID-19 reshapes our historical understanding of epidemics and pandemics in the colonial past. Do you think that the present pandemic has a specifically colonial relevance or resonances?DA: This is a big and, to my mind, fascinating question as it goes to the heart not just of what we as historians make of the present pandemic but of our role as historians, and especially as historians deprived, for once, of the security of hindsight.In India, in the initial weeks and months of the pandemic, history was repeatedly invoked by journalists, by media commentators and by professional historians: history doesn't often get so much attention and coverage.Perhaps this is indicative of the extent to which the colonial past, reflecting what some would see as the "trauma" of colonialism, still matters greatly to India today, more than 70 years after Independence.The general tenor of this COVID-19 commentary was (a) that this was history repeating itself, notably bubonic plague in the 1890s and 1900s and the influenza pandemic of 1918-19; (b) that history provided stern lessons and an urgent warning as to how, or more often how not, to handle a pandemic; and (c) that, even if history wasn't repeating itself entirely, there were scenes, incidents and attitudes from the colonial era being reprised in the twenty-first-century present.Certainly, it is hard not to be struck by both legacies and parallels between the 1890s, 1918 and now.One obvious legacy has been the Epidemic Diseases Act, first introduced into British India in 1897 in response to the plague pandemic, and now being upheld or reinstated like many another colonial law and ordinance in postcolonial India
Archaeology · Colonialism · Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology · Global Security and Public Health · Health and Conflict Studies · History
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2023 (2) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |