Political ecology III

Malaria policy needs to be informed by… (Packard)

history

what did droughts force people to do (Packard)

exacerbated vulnerabilities + forced people to go find alternative food sources = exposed to malaria

Histories of Malaria (Packard)

1. environmental changes allowed growth of mosquito populations (ex. change in water flow)

2. Humans lived/worked near these conditions (lack of ag. = malnutrition = easy to misdiagnose

3. presence of malaria parasites

* all happened because of societal forces

malaria is not…(Packard)

a disease related to the tropics

Packard views the disease as…

part of a wider historical narrative where humans have encouraged the breeding of malaria, exposed populations, and facilitated movement of malaria parasite
ex. urbanization = poorly housed = more susceptible

lack of early agricultural development caused what…by doing what??(packard)

increased transmission ex. clearing forests, irrigating fields = breeding near settlements

Poverty + unequal land ownership = ? (Packard)

poor farmers were displaced from their land and lacked resources / poor housing = more vulnerable

Global north v. global south (Packard)

ag. production is more industrialized = less malaria
ag. stagnation, colonial economic structures = increase spread

wartime disruptions in russia? (Packard)

disruption of land cultivation + poor diets

starting to invest in cotton production? (Pakcard)

needed labor = blacks → sharecropping
conditions of production were often poor → reduced productive capacity → spread of malaria
sharecropping = poor; poor sanitation/infrastructure, overcrowding, nutritional deficiency
rising cotton price was attributed to the increase in malaria mortality

what did rice show? (Packard)

heavy capitalization + mechanization of rice eliminated workers and therefore malaria

boil weevil (packard)

stopped malaria because it separated the poor from the land

decline of malaria in the south…? (Packard)

due to capitalization of agriculture / industrialization

Example of Italy (Packard)

creation of railways = blocked drainage
landownership → middle class → social advancement → less malaria
emigration reduced population pressures on local resources
economic transformations reduced malaria

In Africa, Asia, and Latin America…(Packard)

failed agricultural development because of colonial production = prevented them from ‘growing out of malaria’

colonial expansion drew these regions into a tighter relationship with global markets = increased demand for ag. commodities → kept the prices paid to farmers low

local farmers drawn into cash crops & vulnerable to fluctuations in international commodity prices = dependent

Plantations + poor labor practices associations: (Packard)

limited investment in mechanization + poor workers + clearing land = spread of malaria
infection = threat to laborers and local population
tended to recruit workers that had no resistance

Brazil example (Packard)

sharecropping gives peasants a fragile economic base
drought causes increase migration = those who traveled were more suceptible
migrant-refugees had no resistance and suffered from malnutrition
economic stratification + poverty + migration

Punjab example (Packard)

structure of ag. markets + lack of social safety nets + availability of cash + drought = threatened ways of farming + shift to cash crops

dependency on purchased food + decline farm income = overcropping → higher correlation between rising food prices and malaria

Agricultural expansion initiated under British rule = groundwork for malaria

Africa example (Packard)

movement of white settlers forced farmers to choose becoming labor tenants or moving to an African settlement (lowland + malaria + movement of Africans out of highlands)

neglect of malaria protection for AA bc the belief that africans possessed immunity (promoted by public health authorities)

Patterns of economic development are linked to…(Packard)

ag expansion that prevented farmers from growing out of malaria
contributed to the expansion of malaria by creating conditions that fostered + exposed populations + encouraged movement

Efforts to control malaria relied on…(Packard)

narrow biomedical solutions (drugs, pesticides), it saves lives, but doesn’t stop the global health problem

New malaria model (Packard)

narrowed the focus of disease control efforts, aimed at improving the environment (eliminating waste, housing, ect)

Bacterial discoveries? (packard)

led to attaching germs, the microscope > efforts to improve conditions

vector control (packard)

reduce pop of mosquitos - required little cooperation from pop and could use environmental engineering, but was expensive

Attacking the parasite (Packard)

less expensive (quinine), required pop cooperation

Both attacking the parasite and vector control…(packard)

were rooted in biological constructs of disease

League of nations malaria comitte (packard)

social + economic advancement
bonification - create new ag lands that support farmers → improve their economci status

LNHO (packard)

more integrated view of health, ideologies ended after WW2

Hegemony of vector control

1. WW2 - for soldiers, vector was more effective than sanitation, housing, ect., research policies encouraged projects to meet military needs and pesticides contributed to warfare (DDT)

2. growing political conservatism - models that linked social medicine to broader reform were suspected as socialism / socialist influences
   
   

Biomedicine flow chart (lecture)

fruits/chemical based - parasite - female mosquito (vector control, pesticides, nets, DDT) - human infected parasite in host (quinine, antibiotics/resistance)

Social medicine flow chart (lecture)

roots - water management, prevent water logging, lower-cost healthcare, poverty alleviation, land re-distribution, small farmers

Sharecropping (packard)

farmers rent from large plantation owners in return for a) monetary payment b) share of crops

export oriented ag? (packard)

during colonialism (core-periphery)

Results of Apartheid? (packard)

unequal land ownership and agricultural production

why does packard bring up the south?

to remind us that malaria is not far away

pandulum swing (packard)

between social medicine and biomedicine, especially vector-based approaches
(growth of DDT after WW2 and cold war)

consequences of the green revolution? (packard)

reliance on chemicals

production of knowledge (lecture)

is very separate (ex. chemists and farmers) so it is easier to have a generalized approach which is why biomedicine is so popular

the making of a tropical disease

you can have malaria and be malarious

responsibility!

you don’t have to point fingers, fruits absolve culpability

low cost of DDT and its….

DDT had extraordinary insect-killing power

DDT WHO endorsement

(WHO) Expert Committee on Malaria declared DDT an effective primary weapon for widespread malaria control

DDT problems?

-shifted global public health strategies toward narrow biomedical and chemical solutions = sidelining social medicine
-WHO Expert Committee warned against total reliance on insecticides, saying that overconfidence in residual spraying threatened to derail research into alternative control method

cold war and DDT

Spraying programs were deployed by the U.S. as high-visibility "impact programs" to win local support and counter communist influence