The Rockefeller Foundation and the Transregional Production of Quarantine Knowledge: Space, Race, and Responsibilization between the US and South Africa

Abstract

The Rockefeller Foundation (RF) was a major actor in global health in the 20th century. Its International Health Division and, later, its Division of Medicine and Public Health established programs and awarded fellowships in countries around the world, facilitating new transnational and transregional connections and routes for knowledge circulation. This report focuses on activities of the RF in South Africa that were related to infectious disease control and, in particular, to quarantine knowledge. Quarantine operates through space and, at the same time, plays a central role in the construction and experience of (pandemic) space. It also intersects with other spatial patterns – for example, racial segregation, which has a long history in both the US and South Africa. In order to understand the role the RF played in the production, transnational and transregional circulation, and codification of quarantine knowledge, the report follows three steps. First, it reconstructs two networks between the RF and South Africa that formed in the 1950s around arbovirus research and social medicine initiatives, respectively. Secondly, it asks how these networks contributed to the production and codification of quarantine levels and how they were connected to organizations (especially the World Health Organization) responsible for international quarantine agreements. Lastly, it explores the impact of segregation and Apartheid on the RF projects in South Africa and asks how the assumption of racial difference influenced the research design and results of the two networks