Login

Publications  •  Project Statistics

Glossary  •  Schools  •  Disciplines
People Search: 
   
Title/Abstract Search: 

Dissertation Information for Thomas Patrick Malloy

NAME:
- Thomas Patrick Malloy

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (2003)

ADVISORS:
- Edward A. Alpers

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Sharon Jean Traweek
- William H. Worger
- Teshome Gabriel

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: "Holding [Tanganyika] by the sindano": Networks of medicine in colonial Tanganyika

Abstract: This dissertation in African history borrows insights from recent social studies of science in order to examine the materialities and discourses of medicine in colonial Tanganyika. The study covers the colonial period, with special emphasis on the inter-war years, and its source materials are largely archival, making special use of Swahili-language sources. The argument presented herein is that colonial medicine in Tanganyika represented a kind of mixed authority, interweaving civil, medical and epistemological powers. In so doing, Western medicine played an important role in creating and maintaining the colonial society of Tanganyika.

Chapters 2 through 4 address material aspects of medical networks. Chapter 2 examines the organization of African therapeutics and the rise of a relatively centralized biomedicine with links to governments and the colonial project. Chapter 3 discusses the role of the sindano , the needle, as a political and therapeutic instrument. Chapter 4 analyses the network of spaces produced by the colonial medical system, specifically hospitals and tribal dispensaries.

The remaining three chapters address Swahili-language discourses of medicine, from the (supposed) authority of the printed word to the charged speech of rumor. Chapters 5 and 6 focus primarily on printed Swahili, which differed from the spoken language because European-run institutions largely controlled access to this form of mass-produced communication. This new language form was part of an explicit strategy on the part of European interests to culturally transform East Africa. Chapter 6 performs close readings on Swahili medical texts published during the colonial period. It looks at the description of the body, the microbial origins of disease, and new models of hygienic domesticity. Finally, Chapter 7 looks at African rumors and biomedical practices, focusing on rumors of the exsanguination of Africans in order to turn their blood into the medicine mumiani. These rumors, in turn, are examined in light of the peculiar economy of biomedical research and its demands on peoples' bodies.

MPACT Scores for Thomas Patrick Malloy

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-08-12 14:18:53

Advisors and Advisees Graph

generating graph, please reload

Students under Thomas Patrick Malloy

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None