ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Governmentality of Sanitary Imperialism: The Rockefeller Foundation’s Yellow Fever Campaign and Its Institutional Legacies in Latin America (1913-1930)

• In Event: Public Health in the Americas

English Abstract

This article takes the Rockefeller Foundation's yellow fever eradication campaign in Latin America from 1913 to 1930 as a central case study to explore the governance logic and institutional legacy of American sanitary imperialism. Drawing on archival documents, institutional reports, and existing scholarship, the study reveals how "scientific philanthropy" was transformed in practice into a transnational technique of governance. The paper first traces the concept of the World Philanthropy System proposed by Frederick Gates, arguing that the Foundation's international health initiatives were essentially a political project for the United States to expand its global influence. Second, through case analyses of Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil, and Peru, it demonstrates how the Foundation, leveraging technical superiority and financial control, reshaped local health administrative systems, thereby consolidating American political and cultural hegemony. Finally, the paper identifies the long-term institutional legacy of the yellow fever eradication campaign, including epistemic hegemony, institutional dependence, and the unipolarization of medical discourse power, which profoundly shaped the structure of 20th-century international health governance. The article advocates for re-examining the modernization of global public health from the perspective of sanitary imperialism, which aids in reflecting on the ethical boundaries and political essence of contemporary global health cooperation.

Author

• Hang Zhao, Research Center for the History of Modern World, Nankai University, China