We see this conference as contributing to the growing scholarly debate on the comparative history of colonialism and public health, one of the `tools of empire.' We hope to explore the cultural and ideological dimensions of public health in Britain's tropical empire. We hope the conference will allow us to examine the variation in public health systems within the empire as well addressing such unifying themes as the significance of metropolitan concepts of race and the role of the metropole as the disseminator of policies and practitioners throughout the empire. Perhaps most importantly, we see this conference as providing an opportunity to discuss the role of colonised populations in constructing health care systems that reflected their own world views and resisted metropolitan-derived ideas of racial inferiority.

We encourage paper proposals addressing the following themes:

  1.  Indigenous Healing Systems and European Health Care.
 
  2.  Colonial Mental Health and the Construction of Race.
 
  3.  Public Health, Sanitation, and Urban Spaces.
 
  4.  Gender and Colonial Health Care Policy.
 
  5.  Public Health in the Age of Empire.
 

We are applying for conference funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council as well as from York University. When we receive confirmation of our funding, we hope to be in a position to offer assistance with lodging and related expenses. However, at this stage we cannot promise financial aid.

We look forward to your participation. An early response will be appreciated.