Intermedial Dialogues: The French New Wave and the Other Arts by Marion Schmid (review)

Abstract

Putting aside the example of malaria, which has already been the focus of recent major studies by scholars such as Mitchitake Aso, Velmet focuses primarily on TB and yellow fever vaccinations in Vietnam and Senegal. There is also a fascinating chapter dedicated to the attempt to introduce pasteurization methods to alcohol production in French Indochina as part of the colonial authorities’ drive to monopolize the industry. The Pastorians, as Velmet refers to them, often enjoyed a privileged status in the colonies, and their legacy continues to be celebrated as distinct from other aspects of colonial rule and oppression. Yet, many of those involved in the race to find vaccines and to roll out large vaccination programmes overseas benefited from their positions and from reduced levels of oversight to push undeveloped, ill-informed programmes and also to engage in their own colonial exploits. Notable here is the story of Alexandre Yersin’s empire-building in French Indochina which saw him buy up and develop coffee and rubber plantations. This privileged and paradoxical status takes centre stage during the 1931 Exposition coloniale internationale in Paris, during which colonial doctors found themselves cited as part of anti-colonial struggles at the same time as their work was being upheld as evidence of the benefits of French occupation. What is perhaps most interesting for our own moment is the way that vaccines such as the BCG vaccination programme in Indochina functioned as what Velmet calls a ‘technopolitical’ tool and were co-opted to a discourse that presented colonialism as a form of humanitarianism. Yet, as Velmet carefully demonstrates, often the use of vaccines was presented as a kind of ‘magic bullet’ in place of, rather than alongside, other much-needed reforms to healthcare, housing, and labour conditions. Vaccination programmes were often described by doctors and officials using military terminology appropriated from the wider discourse associated with colonial occupation and its opposition. The complex geopolitics of vaccines currently playing out in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, not to mention the instrumentalization of wartime discourse, attests to the ongoing legacy of colonial vaccination programmes. As such, Velmet’s study of the Pastorians makes an invaluable and timely contribution to understanding the historical context and technopolitical stakes of global contagion and its containment.