Population Politics in the Tropics
Demography, Health and Transimperialism in Colonial Angola

The book analyses how depopulation anxieties and transimperial connections shaped medical, demographic and administrative interventions in Portuguese Angola.

Samuël Coghe (Author)

9781108837866, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 February 2022

332 pages
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.6 kg

'A meticulously researched, thoughtfully written, and solidly argued book that contributes in important ways to the historiography on imperialism, science, medicine, migrations, and border policies in late colonial Africa. It is essential reading for students of the late Portuguese colonial empire. Scholars of colonialism and medicine in Africa more widely will find in this rich work valuable insights and a source of comparative inspiration.' Ricardo Roque, American Historical Review

Population Politics in the Tropics explores colonial population policies in Angola between 1890 and 1945 from a transimperial perspective. Using a wide array of previously unused sources and multilingual archival research from Angola, Portugal and beyond, Samuël Coghe sheds new light on the history of colonial Angola, showing how population policies were conceived, implemented and contested. He analyses why and how doctors, administrators, missionaries and other colonial actors tried to grasp and quantify demographic change and 'improve' the health conditions, reproductive regimes and migration patterns of Angola's 'native' population. Coghe argues that these interventions were inextricably linked to pervasive fears of depopulation and underpopulation, but that their implementation was often hampered by weak state structures, internal conflicts and multiple forms of African agency. Coghe's fresh analysis of demography, health and migration in colonial Angola challenges common ideas of Portuguese colonial exceptionalism.

Introduction
1. Sleeping sickness, depopulation anxieties and the emergence of population politics
2. Tropical medicine and sleeping sickness control before 1918
3. Introducing social medicine: Inter-imperial learning and the Assistência Médica aos Indígenas in the interwar period
4. Re-assessing population decline: Medical demography and the tensions of statistical knowledge
5. Saving the children: Infant mortality and the politics of motherhood
6. The problem of migration: Depopulation anxieties, border politics and the tensions of empire
Conclusion
Epilogue: Demography and population politics, 1945-1975
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of medicine [MBX]