Books by Jessica Lynne Pearson
Differing interpretations of the history of the United Nations on the one hand conceive of it as ... more Differing interpretations of the history of the United Nations on the one hand conceive of it as an instrument to promote colonial interests while on the other emphasize its influence in facilitating self-determination for dependent territories. The authors in this book explore this dynamic in order to expand our understanding of both the achievements and the limits of international support for the independence of colonized peoples. This book will prove foundational for scholars and students of modern history, international history, and postcolonial history.
Os impérios do internacional: Perspectivas, genealogias e processos (Lisbon: Almedina, 2020), 2020
De que modo é que as diferentes organizações internacionais, das Nações Unidas à UNESCO e à Organ... more De que modo é que as diferentes organizações internacionais, das Nações Unidas à UNESCO e à Organização Mundial de Saúde, assumiram um papel de relevo nos anos finais do colonialismo europeu e nos distintos processos de descolonização? De que forma é que o novo regime global de direitos humanos, crescentemente institucionalizado a partir de 1948, influenciou as lutas pela emancipação colectiva dos povos coloniais ou a forma como os impérios europeus resistiram aos «ventos de mudança»? Qual o papel desempenhado pelos diferentes espaços coloniais na modelação de regimes internacionais de apoio aos refugiados ou de políticas de saúde e combate às endemias? Com novos temas, problemas e geografias, este volume responde a estas e outras questões, desenvolvendo algumas das reflexões que já se encontram em Os Passados do Presente: Internacionalismo, Imperialismo e a Construção do Mundo Contemporâneo (Almedina, 2015) sobre como o internacional e o imperial se relacionaram e se condicionaram mutuamente. Nas suas diversas manifestações, o internacionalismo e o imperialismo foram, em muitos sentidos e de modo decisivo, dois processos históricos que marcaram a história contemporânea. Tendem, todavia, ainda, e com demasiada frequência, a ser pensados separadamente. Uma separação que o olhar historiográfico rigoroso não autoriza. Os Impérios do Internacional acrescenta, naturalmente, novas preocupações e respostas a um campo de estudos que se tem vindo a expandir e fortalecer de forma notável. Com particular ênfase nos impérios coloniais europeus, mas não esquecendo outras formas de projecção imperial, este volume mobiliza diversos tópicos, escrutinados a partir de abordagens historiográficas e metodológicas diversas. Interroga, assim, de modo crítico o século xx e alguns dos seus legados históricos mais notáveis, das persistentes desigualdades raciais, económicas e sociopolíticas à edificação de uma «ordem» global que desde 1945 aos dias que correm, com naturais variações, condiciona a regulação das sociedades e quotidianos contemporâneos.
In The Colonial Politics of Global Health, Jessica Lynne Pearson explores the collision between i... more In The Colonial Politics of Global Health, Jessica Lynne Pearson explores the collision between imperial and international visions of health and development in French Africa as decolonization movements gained strength.
After World War II, French officials viewed health improvements as a way to forge a more equitable union between France and its overseas territories. Through new hospitals, better medicines, and improved public health, French subjects could reimagine themselves as French citizens. The politics of health also proved vital to the United Nations, however, and conflicts arose when French officials perceived international development programs sponsored by the UN as a threat to their colonial authority. French diplomats also feared that anticolonial delegations to the United Nations would use shortcomings in health, education, and social development to expose the broader structures of colonial inequality. In the face of mounting criticism, they did what they could to keep UN agencies and international health personnel out of Africa, limiting the access Africans had to global health programs. French personnel marginalized their African colleagues as they mapped out the continent’s sanitary future and negotiated the new rights and responsibilities of French citizenship. The health disparities that resulted offered compelling evidence that the imperial system of governance should come to an end.
Pearson’s work links health and medicine to postwar debates over sovereignty, empire, and human rights in the developing world. The consequences of putting politics above public health continue to play out in constraints placed on international health organizations half a century later.
Articles by Jessica Lynne Pearson
This article argues that, although anti-colonial delegations to the 1945 San Francisco Conference... more This article argues that, although anti-colonial delegations to the 1945 San Francisco Conference did not succeed in bringing all colonial territories under the umbrella of international trusteeship, the threat of expanding international oversight shaped the relationship between colonial governments and international organisations in powerful ways. By focusing on how the UN Special Committee on Non-Self-Governing Territories evolved as a de facto supervisory system for dependent territories, this article considers the ways that representatives at the United Nations defined dependency and self-government and explores the crusade that colonial governments led to justify imperialism in the post-war world. Through a consideration of the diplomatic actions of France, Great Britain and Belgium, this article explores the ways that colonial empires jointly mobilised to defend colonialism at the level of the United Nations. In the face of evolving supervisory mechanisms at the United Nations, the French, British and Belgian delegations joined forces in an attempt to expose some of the inherent contradictions in UN policy towards dependent populations, and to make the case that subject populations living in independent territories often endured worse conditions than those living in formal overseas empires.
This article explores the way that anti-colonialism at the UN shaped international health coopera... more This article explores the way that anti-colonialism at the UN shaped international health cooperation in Africa after 1945. By focusing on two organizations–the Commission for Technical Cooperation in Africa and the International Children’s Centre–it argues that colonial empires pursued inter-colonial technical cooperation as a means to respond to critiques at the United Nations and to prevent the involvement of UN agencies on the African continent.
Comment l’anticolonialisme à l’ONU a-t-il influencé la coopération en matière de santé en Afrique après 1945 ? À travers deux organisations – la Commission de coopération technique en Afrique et le Centre international de l’enfance – cet article montre comment les empires coloniaux ont poursuivi la coopération technique inter-coloniale dans leur manière de répondre aux critiques de l’ONU et de prévenir l’ingérence des institutions internationales en Afrique.
Books, Special Issues by Jessica Lynne Pearson
Os impérios do internacional: Perspectivas, genealogias e processos (Lisbon: Almedina, 2020), 2020
De que modo é que as diferentes organizações internacionais, das Nações Unidas à UNESCO e à Organ... more De que modo é que as diferentes organizações internacionais, das Nações Unidas à UNESCO e à Organização Mundial de Saúde, assumiram um papel de relevo nos anos finais do colonialismo europeu e nos distintos processos de descolonização? De que forma é que o novo regime global de direitos humanos, crescentemente institucionalizado a partir de 1948, influenciou as lutas pela emancipação colectiva dos povos coloniais ou a forma como os impérios europeus resistiram aos «ventos de mudança»? Qual o papel desempenhado pelos diferentes espaços coloniais na modelação de regimes internacionais de apoio aos refugiados ou de políticas de saúde e combate às endemias? Com novos temas, problemas e geografias, este volume responde a estas e outras questões, desenvolvendo algumas das reflexões que já se encontram em Os Passados do Presente: Internacionalismo, Imperialismo e a Construção do Mundo Contemporâneo (Almedina, 2015) sobre como o internacional e o imperial se relacionaram e se condicionaram mutuamente. Nas suas diversas manifestações, o internacionalismo e o imperialismo foram, em muitos sentidos e de modo decisivo, dois processos históricos que marcaram a história contemporânea. Tendem, todavia, ainda, e com demasiada frequência, a ser pensados separadamente. Uma separação que o olhar historiográfico rigoroso não autoriza. Os Impérios do Internacional acrescenta, naturalmente, novas preocupações e respostas a um campo de estudos que se tem vindo a expandir e fortalecer de forma notável. Com particular ênfase nos impérios coloniais europeus, mas não esquecendo outras formas de projecção imperial, este volume mobiliza diversos tópicos, escrutinados a partir de abordagens historiográficas e metodológicas diversas. Interroga, assim, de modo crítico o século xx e alguns dos seus legados históricos mais notáveis, das persistentes desigualdades raciais, económicas e sociopolíticas à edificação de uma «ordem» global que desde 1945 aos dias que correm, com naturais variações, condiciona a regulação das sociedades e quotidianos contemporâneos.
Internationalism, imperialism and the formation of the contemporary world, 2017
This volume offers innovative insights into and approaches to the multiple historical intersectio... more This volume offers innovative insights into and approaches to the multiple historical intersections between distinct modalities of internationalism and imperialism during the twentieth century, across a range of contexts. Bringing together scholars from diverse theoretical, methodological and geographical backgrounds, the book explores an array of fundamental actors, institutions and processes that have decisively shaped contemporary history and the present. Among other crucial topics, it considers the expansion in the number and scope of activities of international organizations and its impact on formal and informal imperial polities, as well as the propagation of developmentalist ethos and discourses, relating them to major historical processes such as the growing institutionalization of international scrutiny in the interwar years or, later, the emerging global Cold War.
“This volume of essays is the most vehement caution yet that historians of the twentieth century cannot ignore the complicating place of imperialism in the pasts of the present, regardless of whether we trace those pasts back by picking up the strands of national or international institutions, practices or thought.” (Glenda Sluga, Professor of International History, University of Sydney, Australia)
“Just as empires were global phenomena, so, too, the administrative agencies, international organizations, and oppositional networks engaged by those empires' decolonization were global in vision and reach. This essay collection highlights the intersections involved. The issues addressed retain a powerful resonance, from the consideration of international organisations as sites of internationalist innovation to the public diplomacy of anti-colonialism and the imperial foundations of modernisation theories and development strategies. From first to last, it's a rewarding read.” (Martin Thomas, Professor of Imperial History, University of Exeter, UK)
“This elegant edited volume innovates in terms of methodology and historiography thanks to the work of the editors. They set up a very coherent and consistent editorial project and asked a number of well-known outstanding contributors to reflect and write individual chapters that pondered, connected and intertwined the role of internationalism and imperialism in the making of our world. All authors went beyond labels, trends and buzzwords; in their respective chapters they zoomed in and out providing compelling analyses. This sophisticated and nuanced volume will trigger new research. It will be read and greatly appreciated by undergraduate, graduate students and scholars alike.” (Davide Rodogno, International History, Professor and Head of Department, The Graduate Institute Geneva, Switzerland)
Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo and José Pedro Monteiro, eds., Os Passados do Presente. Internacionalism... more Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo and José Pedro Monteiro, eds., Os Passados do Presente. Internacionalismo, imperialismo e a construção do mundo contemporâneo (Coimbra: Almedina, 2015)
Este livro inclui um conjunto de textos ilustrativo do novo fulgor que vivem a história internacional e transnacional, marcado por importantes progressos conceptuais, metodológicos e analíticos. Explorando a intersecção de dois processos históricos fulcrais na história recente – internacionalismo e imperialismo –, Os Passados do Presente contribui para uma visão mais rica e detalhada do século xx, desvelando o papel de actores, instituições processos históricos cuja importância é frequentemente obscurecida pelas narrativas tradicionais sobre as dinâmicas internacionais, mas cuja relevância para a compreensão de todo o século anterior bem como do presente é inegável. O livro aborda temas como o controlo geopolítico das populações e a regulação e cooperação internacional dos saberes e das políticas sociais, visando contribuir para a compreensão da génese histórica de fenómenos tão actuais como a ajuda ao desenvolvimento, a natureza do humanitarismo, o papel local e global das organizações internacionais e de movimentos transnacionais ou a longa duração das geopolíticas imperiais.
AUTORES:
Alison Bashford · David Ekbladh
David C. Engerman · Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo
Sandrine Kott · Daniel Laqua · Daniel Maul
José Pedro Monteiro · Jason Parker · Jessica Pearson-Patel
Perrin Selcer · Corinna Unger · Andrew Zimmerman
Book Reviews by Jessica Lynne Pearson
Just as the process of decolonization in the twentieth century reshaped high-level political stru... more Just as the process of decolonization in the twentieth century reshaped high-level political structures, so too did it radically alter social and institutional configurations even closer to home for former colonial subjects and citizens. Indeed, the end of formal colonial rule brought about not only new forms of government and political participation, but also new thinking about how to run a postcolonial society and build a new citizenry. Experts contemplated how to organize agriculture and food production, how to structure education systems that would form the citizens of newly independent states, and how to provide medical care to ensure a healthy and growing population. The reach of the decolonizing process can thus be traced into the most intimate corners of home, body, and mind. In Black Skin, White Coats, Matthew Heaton expertly links broader political developments brought about by decolonization to changes in the field of Nigerian psychiatry, and in turn connects this shift to changing understandings of race and the postcolonial self.
Other Publications by Jessica Lynne Pearson
Guest blog post for the Reluctant Internationalists.
Interview with Jason Steinhauer of the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress (re-printe... more Interview with Jason Steinhauer of the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress (re-printed on TIME online, Feb. 13, 2015)
Uploads
Books by Jessica Lynne Pearson
After World War II, French officials viewed health improvements as a way to forge a more equitable union between France and its overseas territories. Through new hospitals, better medicines, and improved public health, French subjects could reimagine themselves as French citizens. The politics of health also proved vital to the United Nations, however, and conflicts arose when French officials perceived international development programs sponsored by the UN as a threat to their colonial authority. French diplomats also feared that anticolonial delegations to the United Nations would use shortcomings in health, education, and social development to expose the broader structures of colonial inequality. In the face of mounting criticism, they did what they could to keep UN agencies and international health personnel out of Africa, limiting the access Africans had to global health programs. French personnel marginalized their African colleagues as they mapped out the continent’s sanitary future and negotiated the new rights and responsibilities of French citizenship. The health disparities that resulted offered compelling evidence that the imperial system of governance should come to an end.
Pearson’s work links health and medicine to postwar debates over sovereignty, empire, and human rights in the developing world. The consequences of putting politics above public health continue to play out in constraints placed on international health organizations half a century later.
Articles by Jessica Lynne Pearson
Comment l’anticolonialisme à l’ONU a-t-il influencé la coopération en matière de santé en Afrique après 1945 ? À travers deux organisations – la Commission de coopération technique en Afrique et le Centre international de l’enfance – cet article montre comment les empires coloniaux ont poursuivi la coopération technique inter-coloniale dans leur manière de répondre aux critiques de l’ONU et de prévenir l’ingérence des institutions internationales en Afrique.
Books, Special Issues by Jessica Lynne Pearson
“This volume of essays is the most vehement caution yet that historians of the twentieth century cannot ignore the complicating place of imperialism in the pasts of the present, regardless of whether we trace those pasts back by picking up the strands of national or international institutions, practices or thought.” (Glenda Sluga, Professor of International History, University of Sydney, Australia)
“Just as empires were global phenomena, so, too, the administrative agencies, international organizations, and oppositional networks engaged by those empires' decolonization were global in vision and reach. This essay collection highlights the intersections involved. The issues addressed retain a powerful resonance, from the consideration of international organisations as sites of internationalist innovation to the public diplomacy of anti-colonialism and the imperial foundations of modernisation theories and development strategies. From first to last, it's a rewarding read.” (Martin Thomas, Professor of Imperial History, University of Exeter, UK)
“This elegant edited volume innovates in terms of methodology and historiography thanks to the work of the editors. They set up a very coherent and consistent editorial project and asked a number of well-known outstanding contributors to reflect and write individual chapters that pondered, connected and intertwined the role of internationalism and imperialism in the making of our world. All authors went beyond labels, trends and buzzwords; in their respective chapters they zoomed in and out providing compelling analyses. This sophisticated and nuanced volume will trigger new research. It will be read and greatly appreciated by undergraduate, graduate students and scholars alike.” (Davide Rodogno, International History, Professor and Head of Department, The Graduate Institute Geneva, Switzerland)
Este livro inclui um conjunto de textos ilustrativo do novo fulgor que vivem a história internacional e transnacional, marcado por importantes progressos conceptuais, metodológicos e analíticos. Explorando a intersecção de dois processos históricos fulcrais na história recente – internacionalismo e imperialismo –, Os Passados do Presente contribui para uma visão mais rica e detalhada do século xx, desvelando o papel de actores, instituições processos históricos cuja importância é frequentemente obscurecida pelas narrativas tradicionais sobre as dinâmicas internacionais, mas cuja relevância para a compreensão de todo o século anterior bem como do presente é inegável. O livro aborda temas como o controlo geopolítico das populações e a regulação e cooperação internacional dos saberes e das políticas sociais, visando contribuir para a compreensão da génese histórica de fenómenos tão actuais como a ajuda ao desenvolvimento, a natureza do humanitarismo, o papel local e global das organizações internacionais e de movimentos transnacionais ou a longa duração das geopolíticas imperiais.
AUTORES:
Alison Bashford · David Ekbladh
David C. Engerman · Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo
Sandrine Kott · Daniel Laqua · Daniel Maul
José Pedro Monteiro · Jason Parker · Jessica Pearson-Patel
Perrin Selcer · Corinna Unger · Andrew Zimmerman
Book Reviews by Jessica Lynne Pearson
Other Publications by Jessica Lynne Pearson
After World War II, French officials viewed health improvements as a way to forge a more equitable union between France and its overseas territories. Through new hospitals, better medicines, and improved public health, French subjects could reimagine themselves as French citizens. The politics of health also proved vital to the United Nations, however, and conflicts arose when French officials perceived international development programs sponsored by the UN as a threat to their colonial authority. French diplomats also feared that anticolonial delegations to the United Nations would use shortcomings in health, education, and social development to expose the broader structures of colonial inequality. In the face of mounting criticism, they did what they could to keep UN agencies and international health personnel out of Africa, limiting the access Africans had to global health programs. French personnel marginalized their African colleagues as they mapped out the continent’s sanitary future and negotiated the new rights and responsibilities of French citizenship. The health disparities that resulted offered compelling evidence that the imperial system of governance should come to an end.
Pearson’s work links health and medicine to postwar debates over sovereignty, empire, and human rights in the developing world. The consequences of putting politics above public health continue to play out in constraints placed on international health organizations half a century later.
Comment l’anticolonialisme à l’ONU a-t-il influencé la coopération en matière de santé en Afrique après 1945 ? À travers deux organisations – la Commission de coopération technique en Afrique et le Centre international de l’enfance – cet article montre comment les empires coloniaux ont poursuivi la coopération technique inter-coloniale dans leur manière de répondre aux critiques de l’ONU et de prévenir l’ingérence des institutions internationales en Afrique.
“This volume of essays is the most vehement caution yet that historians of the twentieth century cannot ignore the complicating place of imperialism in the pasts of the present, regardless of whether we trace those pasts back by picking up the strands of national or international institutions, practices or thought.” (Glenda Sluga, Professor of International History, University of Sydney, Australia)
“Just as empires were global phenomena, so, too, the administrative agencies, international organizations, and oppositional networks engaged by those empires' decolonization were global in vision and reach. This essay collection highlights the intersections involved. The issues addressed retain a powerful resonance, from the consideration of international organisations as sites of internationalist innovation to the public diplomacy of anti-colonialism and the imperial foundations of modernisation theories and development strategies. From first to last, it's a rewarding read.” (Martin Thomas, Professor of Imperial History, University of Exeter, UK)
“This elegant edited volume innovates in terms of methodology and historiography thanks to the work of the editors. They set up a very coherent and consistent editorial project and asked a number of well-known outstanding contributors to reflect and write individual chapters that pondered, connected and intertwined the role of internationalism and imperialism in the making of our world. All authors went beyond labels, trends and buzzwords; in their respective chapters they zoomed in and out providing compelling analyses. This sophisticated and nuanced volume will trigger new research. It will be read and greatly appreciated by undergraduate, graduate students and scholars alike.” (Davide Rodogno, International History, Professor and Head of Department, The Graduate Institute Geneva, Switzerland)
Este livro inclui um conjunto de textos ilustrativo do novo fulgor que vivem a história internacional e transnacional, marcado por importantes progressos conceptuais, metodológicos e analíticos. Explorando a intersecção de dois processos históricos fulcrais na história recente – internacionalismo e imperialismo –, Os Passados do Presente contribui para uma visão mais rica e detalhada do século xx, desvelando o papel de actores, instituições processos históricos cuja importância é frequentemente obscurecida pelas narrativas tradicionais sobre as dinâmicas internacionais, mas cuja relevância para a compreensão de todo o século anterior bem como do presente é inegável. O livro aborda temas como o controlo geopolítico das populações e a regulação e cooperação internacional dos saberes e das políticas sociais, visando contribuir para a compreensão da génese histórica de fenómenos tão actuais como a ajuda ao desenvolvimento, a natureza do humanitarismo, o papel local e global das organizações internacionais e de movimentos transnacionais ou a longa duração das geopolíticas imperiais.
AUTORES:
Alison Bashford · David Ekbladh
David C. Engerman · Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo
Sandrine Kott · Daniel Laqua · Daniel Maul
José Pedro Monteiro · Jason Parker · Jessica Pearson-Patel
Perrin Selcer · Corinna Unger · Andrew Zimmerman