Patriotic hygiene: Tracing new places of knowledge production about malaria in Vietnam, 1919-75

This article examines knowledge production about malaria in colonial and postcolonial Vietnam. During the 1920s and 1930s, medical doctors cooperated with plantation managers in order to develop industrial hygiene techniques consisting of environmental modification and quinine use. By the 1930s, changing motivations, in particular racial hygiene and patriotism, drove malaria control efforts. The wartime pressures to control malaria between the 1940s and 1975 further encouraged patriotic hygiene. This history of malaria science in Vietnam highlights the tension between change and continuity and shows the importance of place in the conjunction of scientific knowledge production and nation-building projects.