Vivek published "Fractured Understandings of Leprosy in Colonial Bombay, 1867-1933" in the Canadian Journal of Health History 41, no. 1.
Vivek Neelakantan
Ph.D.
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Research Fellow
Southeast Asia and the Beginnings of the Primary Health Paradigm, 1948-1978
Southeast Asia is central to the development of the Primary Health paradigm. This project investigates from a transnational perspective the ways in which international health was appropriated and transformed in Southeast Asia (1948-78). The implementation of health initiatives in the region, under the postcolonial state and international organisations, witnessed inner tensions between the notional magic bullet approach, and a holistic approach that linked public health to nation-building. The Alma Ata Conference on Primary Healthcare (1978) was preceded by the failure of the US-supported global malaria eradication program (1955-69). The US failure left the global health leadership open to the USSR, which showcased what its state-sponsored healthcare could accomplish for developing countries at the Conference. The study situates the evolution of the Primary Health paradigm in Southeast Asia within the context of the Cold War, and the development of WHO Regional Offices (1948-51). In doing so, it examines “paths not taken” in international health.
Read more about Vivek's work here.
Updates
Vivek Neelakantan
Vivek Neelakantan
Vivek has several publications: The Geopolitics of Health in South and Southeast Asia: Perspectives from the Cold War to COVID-19 (Routledge, 2023); "The Monsoon Asia of Geographers: The Cold War Beginnings of the WHO Regional Office for Southeast Asia, 1948-60" and "Neighbors Rally against the Virus: The Case of SAARC" in The Geopolitics of Health in South and Southeast Asia: Perspectives from the Cold War to COVID-19 (Routledge, 2023); in The Geopolitics of Health in South and Southeast Asia: Perspectives from the Cold War to COVID-19, Vivek Neelakantan Edited (Routledge, 2023); "Indonesian Health Policy Between the Old and the New Orders" in Public Health and Cold War Politics in Asia, Liping Bu Edited (Routledge, 2023); and "The First Documented Cholera Epidemic in Bombay City and Presidency, 1818-21" in Paramita: Historical Studies Journal 33, no. 2 (2023): 212-22. Vivek also received a 2023 Brocher Visiting Fellowship and gave a recorded book talk at: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/isa/veranstaltungen/event-detail/isa-regional-guest-lecture-vivek-neelakantan
Vivek Neelakantan
Vivek's new book, The Geopolitics of Health in South and Southeast Asia: Perspectives from the Cold War to COVID-19 is under contract for publication with Routledge.
Vivek Neelakantan
Vivek published a Bahasa Indonesia translation of his book, Science, Public Health and Nation-Building in Soekarno-Era Indonesia.
Vivek Neelakantan
Vivek is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Indore, where he designed and teaches a course on business history. His monograph, Science, Public Health and Nation-Building in Soekarno-Era Indonesia, will soon be translated into Bahasa Indonesian (mid-2019) by the KOMPAS Group.