Jean-Paul Gaudillière of EHESS in Paris and Inserm will present:
February 18, 14:00-16:00 CET
Humboldt University of Berlin
Friedrichstraße 191-193, Room 5061
Jean-Paul Gaudillière will present a history from below of Primary Health Care (PHC) in the Indian state of Kerala, constituting a unique experiment and success of PHC implementation without the support of the WHO. The history of social medicine has rarely been approached from outside Europe and Northern America, even when the second half of the 20th century and the post-colonial states are considered. One major exception to this statement is the abundant historiography of the WHO and PHC strategy it adopted in the late 1970s, which has been considered a plea for a form of social medicine adapted to the limited resources and the pressing needs of the Third World. However, the existing historiography of PHC has favored approaches of the geopolitics of the strategy rather the study of primary health care implementation, practices and limitations. The aim of this presentation is to hinge at such PHC history, using recently opened public archives in Kerala to document one among the most lasting experiments of social medicine from and for the Global South since it started in the early 1960s, how it became a matter of political consensus between the two – communist and center left – coalitions alternating in power, and paradoxically took place without the support of the WHO. Rather than the Geneva negotiations, Gaudillière’s presentation will follow Kerala’s changing PHC experiment with a special interest for the relationship between state initiatives, local government and specific health interventions.
JEAN-PAUL GAUDILLIÈRE is a professor at École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris and historian and senior researcher at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm). His work has focused on the biomedical innovation regime characteristic of the second half of the twentieth century. He is currently concentrated on risk-based health governance and globalization issues.
Jean-Paul Gaudillière of EHESS in Paris and Inserm will present:
February 18, 14:00-16:00 CET
Humboldt University of Berlin
Friedrichstraße 191-193, Room 5061
Jean-Paul Gaudillière will present a history from below of Primary Health Care (PHC) in the Indian state of Kerala, constituting a unique experiment and success of PHC implementation without the support of the WHO. The history of social medicine has rarely been approached from outside Europe and Northern America, even when the second half of the 20th century and the post-colonial states are considered. One major exception to this statement is the abundant historiography of the WHO and PHC strategy it adopted in the late 1970s, which has been considered a plea for a form of social medicine adapted to the limited resources and the pressing needs of the Third World. However, the existing historiography of PHC has favored approaches of the geopolitics of the strategy rather the study of primary health care implementation, practices and limitations. The aim of this presentation is to hinge at such PHC history, using recently opened public archives in Kerala to document one among the most lasting experiments of social medicine from and for the Global South since it started in the early 1960s, how it became a matter of political consensus between the two – communist and center left – coalitions alternating in power, and paradoxically took place without the support of the WHO. Rather than the Geneva negotiations, Gaudillière’s presentation will follow Kerala’s changing PHC experiment with a special interest for the relationship between state initiatives, local government and specific health interventions.
JEAN-PAUL GAUDILLIÈRE is a professor at École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris and historian and senior researcher at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm). His work has focused on the biomedical innovation regime characteristic of the second half of the twentieth century. He is currently concentrated on risk-based health governance and globalization issues.
This website is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 949639)
This website is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 949639)