Knowledge nodes and international networks of connection: representations of private philanthropy by elite higher education institutions

This paper investigates the social and cultural geographies of large-scale individual giving in supporting the work of ‘elite’ international universities. With public funding of higher education in general decline, universities in countries of the global North are increasingly seeking funding from alternative sources, including private philanthropy. Although scholarly work has examined corporate and foundational giving to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), there has been little enquiry into how donations from wealthy individuals are represented by universities in their official literature. Publications such as annual reports, giving reports and campaign reports are used strategically by HEIs to project a global image. We examine the official literature of 50 elite HEIs located across the globe, uncovering new discourses into the cross-cultural reach of universities. We draw attention to complex social and cultural relations between HEIs and philanthropists, describing their encounters with reference to debates on personal mobilities, world-making and global and social inequalities. We conclude by highlighting the implications for theoretical work on ‘strategic philanthropy’ and on the transformative nature of HEIs as global centres of knowledge

Off the couch and on the move: global public health and the medicalisation of nature

In May 2004 the World Health Organization officially launched the ‘Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health’. Lying at its heart is the recognition that many of the risk factors associated with non-communicable diseases, particularly poor diet and physical inactivity, have begun to move beyond the confines of the West. It was this apparent shift in the epidemiological boundaries of such diseases, along with fears over the socalled ‘double burden’ that they presented to some nations, that finally prompted the WHO to develop such a far reaching strategy. This paper adds to the on-going debate surrounding this important issue by drawing on the concepts of medicalisation, governmentality and the spatiality of scientific knowledge to explore one particular element of it: namely, the identification of nature as a setting for the promotion of physical activity. We adopt this perspective because we are concerned to understand the ways in which the knowledge and practice of the new public health travels. As our analysis reveals, in many Western nations the natural environment has emerged as an important ‘transactional zone’ where the governmental imperative for the production of fit and active bodies coalesces with the individual desire to be healthy. However, while it is apparent that this physical activity discourse increasingly operates throughout the globe, there is less evidence of an equivalent discourse that promotes the health-related benefits of nature. We argue that this is significant because it helps us recognise that contemporary public health discourse has a distinct geography

Safeguarding public health at UK airports: an examination of current health security practices

In response to the H1N1 influenza outbreak and the role of air travel in facilitating the virus’s rapid spread around the world, this paper contributes to debates concerning the governance of commercial aviation and infectious disease by examining the role of the Port Health Regulations and associated health security practices that are enacted at UK airports. Drawing on extensive action research and in-depth interviews that were conducted with key stakeholders in the aviation and health care sectors (including airport managers, ‘front line’ customer-facing airline staff, and public health clinicians) during the spring and early summer of 2009, we chart the development of sanitary regulations at UK airports and explore the challenges of performing health security screening at individual sites. In so doing, we identify a number of challenges that are associated with safeguarding public health against the dissemination of infectious diseases by air travel through UK airports. We also suggest that policy transfer may represent an effective mechanism through which best practice procedures from airports overseas could be adapted and incorporated in the UK

Surveillance networks and spaces of governance: technological openness and international cooperation during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic

The ongoing 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic has highlighted the importance of global health surveillance. It has, in the words of WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, offered the opportunity to ‘watch a pandemic unfold […] in real time’. Moreover, it has allowed the international community to more fully prepare for major infectious disease outbreaks. Whilst there is an expanding literature on biosecurity and preparedness, we argue that little consideration has been given to the impact of increased reliance on event-based surveillance on global public health governance. Using Margaret Chan’s 2007 call for a ‘new’ international health diplomacy, we assess the importance of global surveillance networks (such as the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN) and HealthMap) in informing national and transnational practices in relation to the risks posed by emerging infectious diseases. Our analysis is supported by empirical data supplied by GPHIN and by reference to national pandemic influenza preparedness plans. In conclusion, we argue that, by increasing availability of local reporting of disease outbreaks, these networks act as a powerful prompt in initiating global pandemic preparedness and, by extension, international cooperation. Yet, the ongoing H1N1 pandemic demonstrates their fragility as practices of preparedness vary between states across the global north and south

Promoting passenger comfort and wellbeing in the air: an examination of the in-flight health advice provided by international airlines

Following recent, well-publicised, cases of airline passengers developing deep vein thromboses (DVT) and contracting infectious diseases during flights, airlines’ provision of in-flight customer health advice has come under increased scrutiny. By means of a manifest content analysis of the information that is provided in 50 international airlines’ in-flight magazines, this paper examines the nature and presentation of the health advice that is supplied and comments on the different approaches individual airlines adopt

Strategic cultures of philanthropy: English universities and the changing geographies of giving

UK universities are receiving record amounts of funding from private philanthropists. In 2013, it was reported that, for the first time, UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) obtained more major donations from philanthropic sources than any other cause. Three decades of increased neoliberalism and internationalisation of the Higher Education (HE) sector, together with a decline in state funding, have heightened the imperative for English universities in particular to intensify engagement with potential private donors. The UK government, via its Matched Funding Scheme (MFS) 2008-2011, sought to incentivise giving to HEIs in England. Universities have thus been encouraged to grow a 'culture' of philanthropy. Yet, there has been limited investigation by geographers into the impact of private donations on UK HEIs.In this paper, we undertake a critical examination of the official publications of 17 diverse English HEIs which participated in the MFS 2008-2011. Particular attention is paid to the differentiated levels of participation by universities with the MFS and the ways in which donations were represented in their public documents. We argue that diverse cultures of HEI engagement with philanthropic giving are critically linked to their: location in conventional institutional hierarchies; integration in professional knowledge networks; and ability to mobilise strategic connections across geographical scales. In doing so, we advance theoretical work on the role of philanthropic giving in reconfiguring contemporary geographies of HE. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd

Taking care in the air: jet air travel and passenger health, a study of British Overseas Airways Corporation (1940-1974)

This paper explores an aspect of medical history that has been overlooked in existing academic studies of commercial air travel, and advances a new historiography of airline passenger health and commercial aviation medicine. The introduction of jet-powered passenger aircraft by British Overseas Airways Corporation (B.O.A.C.) in 1952 presented a new set of epidemiological, chronobiological, and physiological passenger health concerns. These resulted from the increased size, speed, range, and cruising altitude of commercial jet aircraft. Drawing on extensive archival research, this paper explores the nature of these ‘new’ aeromedical challenges. It places them within the context of much earlier concerns about healthy travel, including military interest in the influence of flight on the human body. Focusing on B.O.A.C., the paper examines the ways in which one major airline responded to the passenger health challenges jet air travel posed, and assesses the extent to which B.O.A.C.’s responses transformed practices of aviation medicine

Of plagues, planes, and politics: controlling the global spread of infectious diseases by air

In recent years, the implications of globalisation for the spread of infectious diseases has begun to emerge as an area of concern to political geographers. Unsurprisingly, much of the contemporary literature focuses on the multifarious threats posed by human and, increasingly, non-human mobility. Prompted by current geo-political concerns surrounding the public health implications of regular international air travel, this paper extends such research by exploring the ways in which the technology of the aeroplane stimulated the production of new international sanitary initiatives aimed at safeguarding global public health in an era of mass aeromobility. By tracing the development of sanitary regulations for aerial navigation, from their origins in the 1920s through the twentieth century in particular, we document the emergence of a series of public health interventions that were designed to limit the public health threat associated with increased international air travel and the concomitant rise in the mobility of infectious diseases. From inoculation certificates to quarantine and the routine ‘disinsection’ of passenger aircraft with powerful insecticides, modern air travel is replete with a complex set of procedures designed to lessen the risks associated with flying between different climatic and ecological zones. Our detailed examination of the historical context in which these procedures were devised and implemented leads us to consider the importance of time and space, power and efficacy, to the development of a more nuanced understanding of the shifting public health response to an increasingly fluid, mobile, and inter-connected society

From ‘shadowy cabal’ to new profession: networks of cooperation and competition in UK Higher Education fundraising

Recent UK government policy initiatives have encouraged universities to seek funding from philanthropic sources. Yet, there has been little investigation into the work of the emergent Higher Education professionals expected to deliver this additional income. In this paper, we consider the role of professional networks in facilitating knowledge exchange amongst university fundraisers. Through interviews with senior UK philanthropy professionals in the 1960s universities, we identify significant variations amongst professional networks and peer groups. We argue that professional networks are multi-layered and often exclusionary. Yet, among participants, these associations provide both open spaces of learning and a means of achieving competitive advantage. Moreover, the networks permit university philanthropy professionals to develop new distinctive identities, transcending the institutional and locational setting of their employing organisations. This paper advances theoretical debates on the complexities of knowledge exchange across spatial scales and the role of these networks in the establishment of a new profession

Scales of governance: the role of surveillance in facilitating new diplomacy during the 2009-2010 H1N1 pandemic

The 2009–2010 H1N1 influenza pandemic has highlighted the importance of global health surveillance. Increasingly, global alerts are based on 'unexpected’ 'events’ detected by surveillance systems grounded in particular places. An emerging global governance literature investigates the supposedly disruptive impact of public health emergencies on mobilities in an interdependent world. Little consideration has been given to the varied scales of governance – local, national and global – that operate at different stages in the unfolding of an 'event', together with the interactions and tensions between them. By tracking the chronology of the H1N1 pandemic, this paper highlights an emergent dialogue between local and global scales. It also draws attention to moments of national autonomy across the global North and South which undermined the WHO drive for transnational cooperation