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- Dr Ryan Johnson
Dr Ryan Johnson
Lecturer, University of Strathclyde
Research Summary
My research has investigated ideas and practices of medicine in Britain’s tropical colonies from 1895-1914, and argued for the importance of bringing back the “imperial” to the study of medicine in colonial localities. I redefined the imperial in relation to ITM by demonstrating that what was most imperial about it was not its practice, but the hopes and aspirations that were embedded in it.
Research interests and current projects
My current research interest is a history of public health in British West Africa, c.1800-1965. The proposed research will investigate the relationships forged between the imperial and colonial state, West Africans, and private and commercial interests in British West Africa, and assess their impact on the formation and execution of public health policy in the region. It will ask what can changes in public health policy in West Africa tell us about the changing nature of British imperialism and empire during this period. And what can a history of public health in British West Africa tell us about modern day concepts of 'expertise', 'development' and processes of globalisation?
Publications
Books:
1.) 'Public Health in the British Empire: Intermediaries, Subordinates and Public Health Practice, 1850-1960, (London:Routledge, 2011) edited with Amna Khalid.
2.) 'Beyond the State: The Colonial Medical Services in British Africa (Manchester: Manchester University Press, Under Contract) edited with Anna Greenwood.nn
3.) 'Tropical Medicine and Imperial Power: Science, Health and Hygiene in the Late British Empire.') London: I.B.Tauris, Under Contract).
Peer Reviewed Articles:
1.) ‘Tabloid Brand Medicine Chests: Selling Health and Hygiene for the British Tropical Colonies’. Science as Culture, 17(3), 2008, 249-268.
2.) ‘European Cloth and “Tropical” Skin: Clothing Material and British Ideas of Health and Hygiene in Tropical Climates’. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 83(3), 2009, 530-60.
3.) '‘Colonial Mission and Imperial Tropical Medicine: Livingstone College, London, 1893-1914’. Social History of Medicine, 23(3), 2010, 549-566.
4.) “An All White Institution”: Defending Private Practice and the Formation of the West African Medical Staff ’. Medical History, 54(2), 2010, 237-54.
5.) ‘The West African Medical Staff and the Administration of Imperial Tropical Medicine, 1902-14'. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 38(3), 2010, 419-439.
Book Chapters:
‘Local Mantsemei, Interpreters, and the Successful Eradication of Plague: The 1908 Plague Epidemic in Colonial Accra’, in Ryan Johnson and Amna Khalid, eds., Public Health in the British Empire: Intermediaries, Subordinates, and Public Health Practice, 1850-1960. (New York: Routledge, 2011).
'Shipping Companies, Private Practice and the West African Medical Staff in the Gold Coast (Ghana) and Sierra Leone, 1902-1914,' in Anna Greenwood and Ryan Johnson, eds, Beyond the State: The Colonial Medical Services in British Africa (Manchester University Press, Forthcoming).
Other Publications:
'The Cultural Economy of Public Health in British West Africa, 1865-1965'. Wellcome History. 44, 2010, 6-7.
'Commodity Culture: Tropical Health and Hygiene in the British Empire’. Endeavour, 32 (2), 2008, 70-74.
Debates in the Historiography of Health and Healthcare in British Colonial Africa'. Global South, 6(3), July 2010.
Essay and Book Reviews:
Book review, Medicine in an Age of Commerce & Empire: Britain and its Tropical Colonies, 1660-1830 by Mark Harrion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Medical History, 55(3), 2011.
Book Review, Crossing Colonial Historiographies: Histories of Colonial and Indigenous Medicines in Transnational Perspective, eds., Anne Digby, Waltraud Ernst and Projit B. Mukharji, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. Social History of Medicine, 24(3), 2011.
Book review, Biomedicine as a Contested Site: Some Revelations in Imperial Contexts by Poonam Bala, ed. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009). Social History of Medicine, 23(1), 2010, 212-14.
Book review, The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria by Randall M. Packard (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press). Annals of Science, 67(1), 2010, 139-42.
Essay Review, ‘Have We Found the Postcolonial History of Medicine? An Essay Review'. History of Intellectual Culture, 8(1), 1-6, 2010.
Research student supervision
I am interested in developing graduate projects in the following areas: health and disease in British Africa, esp. West Africa; transnational perspectives of imperial tropical medicine; missionary medicine’s relationship to the colonial state; and investigating travel and health literature and travelling to the tropical colonies.
Contact
Email: ryan.johnson@strath.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 141 548 2701
Fax: +44 (0) 141 552 8509
Department of History
University of Strathclyde
McCance Building, 16 Richmond Street, Glasgow G1 1XQ
