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Socialist Medicine: An Alternative Global Health History

Project description

Rewriting medical history through a different perspective

The history of medicine and its effects on our lives has mostly been told through the eyes of the capitalist West. However, this often omits how healthcare is viewed in socialist nations – regions affected by vastly different socio-political developments – and how it shapes health cultures specific to those nations. The EU-funded SOCMED project seeks to rewrite global health history by incorporating networks, knowledges and technologies from socialist countries and the way they influenced international health and medicine in the 20th century. The goal is to enhance our understanding of historical developments in medicine while revealing the true foundations modern global healthcare is built on.

Objective

Socialist Medicine: An Alternative Global Health History

The project pioneers a new history of global health that, for the first time, incorporates the socialist world - a constellation of countries in a fluctuating political, economic and military nexus distinct from the capitalist West. It identifies the particular health cultures produced by socialism (in all its variety) and explores the impact of socialist internationalism in co-producing global health in the 20th century. The proposed project pioneers a new history that will not only transform our knowledge of historical processes, but will further our understanding of ideas, practices and processes that current global health structures have been built on.

Global health histories are framed mainly through American, colonial and liberal perspectives, even as some contributions of the socialist world, e.g. in smallpox eradication, have been acknowledged. The omission of socialist contexts, however, distorts our understanding of what global health is. Many parts of the socialist world, like China or Czechoslovakia, provided different approaches to international and global health, e.g. in rural health or epidemic management. Although there was not one socialist template, diverse framings of socialist medicine played major roles in shaping and contesting global practices.

A systematic analysis of socialist medicine and international health through global case studies integrates missing expert networks, political agendas, public health models and diplomatic agreements in global health history. This work, in turn, allows us to rethink concepts such as socialism, medical aid, solidarity, development, socialist medical research and health provision.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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ERC-STG - Starting Grant

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2020-STG

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Host institution

HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITAET ZU BERLIN
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 500 000,00
Address
UNTER DEN LINDEN 6
10117 Berlin
Germany

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Region
Berlin Berlin Berlin
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 500 000,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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