Fighting Pandemics from Below. Global North-South Public Health Cooperation in the Middle East and North Africa, 1792-1942
[COOPERATION, ERC-2023-COG, 101125306]
ERC COOPERATION project recaptures the lost archives and historical knowledge of international public health cooperation between the so-called ‘Global North’ and the ‘Global South’ by analysis of its first and longest-lasting instances: the sanitary councils in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Established in Tangier, Alexandria, Tunis, Istanbul and Tehran, these unprecedented institutions fought against waves of epidemics and pandemics between the 1790s and the 1940s. Their European, American and native co-founders invented new models for fighting pandemics from below and stopping the diseases in their tracks. All along, they strove to overcome the familiar barriers to cooperation posed by inter-imperial competition in a multipolar world, economic inequities, protests against quarantine restrictions, and racial and Orientalist biases, among others.
Our team examines the entangled and transimperial histories of public health cooperation, shifting the narrative from West-centric, top-down approaches to a more nuanced view of bottom-up processes. We explore the preconditions for (effective) international public health cooperation in MENA uncovering how north-south collaboration relied not only on Great Power dominance or covert imperialism but also on reciprocal actions on the ground. Our project will disclose that the agency of local actors and smaller and middle European powers in accrediting public health cooperation was more central than has been documented to this date and measure the councils’ success/failure by assessing their endurance, legitimacy and performance and consulting previously untapped archival sources in Europe, MENA, North America and Russia.
News
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Javier Martínez
We are delighted to receive as our guest of honor medical historian dr. Javier Martínez Antonio, during the workshop we are holding on 9 October. Javier Martínez, who is Professor at the University of Zaragoza, has done extensive research on the history of medicine, public health, and humanitarianism in modern Morocco, including quarantines in the…
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OSARK 4th Congress on Ottoman Studies
We are proud to announce that no fewer than four COOPERATION members -Bryony Harris, Charles Ough, Evren Çakıl and Giorgio Ennas- will share their research findings, insights and experiences during the upcoming Congress on Ottoman Studies. This 4th edition is scheduled to take place from 17 till 19 October 2025 and will be hosted by…
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We are hiring!
Do you hold a doctoral degree in 19th and early 20th century international history, imperial history, history of medicine, Middle Eastern/North African history or another field that matches our area of investigation? We are looking for a motivated Postdoctoral researcher to join our team. Find further details on the position and how to apply on…
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Bryony Harris presents at conference at Radboud University
In August, PhD Candidate Bryony Harris attended a two-day conference at Radboud University in Nijmegen. How did we Lift the Burden? Infectious Disease Mortality in the Western and Non-Western World (1800-now) was organised by the GREATLEAP network and brought together a community of historical demography experts to tackle this question with a variety of theoretical, empirical and methodological…
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Giorgio Ennas and Evren Cakil will present at EAHMH 2025 Health Beyond Medicine
In August, Giorgio Ennas and Evren Cakil will present at EAHMH 2025 Health Beyond Medicine. This year’s conference is hosted by the Humboldt University Berlin and will take place between 26 and 29 August. Fellow postdoc Ennas is scheduled to participate on the 27th, together with Dr. Shiori Nosaka, Dr. Cansu Degirmencioglu and Dr. Léa…
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Second Q-meeting: where do we stand after 12 months.
The COOPERATION research team gathered on 30 June to review progress, align on the next steps to take, and celebrate achievements made. The last 12 months have been productive. Before starting the discussion, team members showed on a map all the places they have been to. Together, they have covered a huge area, that ranges…
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Gert Huskens at 6th Conference of the New Diplomatic History Network in Aix-en-Provence
On 23 May, Gert Huskens presented in Aix-en-Provence his paper Murky water in Tangier. Sanitary transimperialism and Belgian economic expansion in (pre-)colonial Morocco, 1899-1920 at the 6th New Diplomatic History Conference in the panel Humanitarian and health diplomacy chaired by prof. Benoît Pouget. In his contribution, Huskens looked at the Belgian entrepreneurs and companies that…
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Charles Ough presenting at the 2025 BRISMES Conference in Newcastle
On 2nd July, Charles Ough will present his paper From Revolution to Ruin: Subaltern Politics, Social Change and Sectarian Violence in Mount Lebanon, 1858-60 at the 2025 British Society of Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) annual conference, this year hosted by Newcastle University in the North East of England. Mr Ough looks at the 1858 peasants’…
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Bryony Harris presents at the Humanities Graduate School Conference.
PhD candidate Bryony Harris gave a great presentation at the Humanities Graduate School Conference, titled ‘Disease control and bodily autonomy in Mehmed Ali’s Egypt (1831-1843). As a team, we are all very proud of her and look forward to follow her progress.
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Giorgio Ennas presenting at conference in Naples
On 5 June, Giorgio Ennas will be presenting in Naples his paper Who is afraid to cooperate? The Sanitary Council of Tunis between fear and cooperation at the conference ‘Epidemics: contacts and contagions, reactions, and emotions’, focused on reactions and emotions in the face of epidemics in the pre-industrial age. Ennas is investigating how, between…
Agenda
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Ozan Ozavci at the Univeristy of Konstanz
We are proud to announce that Ozan Ozavci is presenting our project at the University of Konstanz. Visit the following link for more information. We wish Ozan a great presentation!
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Book presentation “Securing Empire: Imperial Cooperation and Competition in the Nineteenth Century” in Leipzig
On 21 May Ozan Ozavci will talk about his recent publication at the Research Centre Global Dynamics in Leipzig. He will be joined by Andrea Wiegeshoff, who will elaborate on one of the cases presented in the book. It is possible to join the event online. Find the zoom link on the website.
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Book presentation ‘Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State’ by author Dr. Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky.
Between the 1850s and World War I, the Ottoman Empire welcomed about a million Muslim refugees from Russia. In his new book, Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State, Dr. Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky examines how Circassian, Chechen, Dagestani, and other refugees transformed the late Ottoman Empire and how the Ottoman government managed…
