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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:'In the border regions of the territory of Rhodesia, there is the greatest scourge': the border and East Coast Fever control in central Mozambique and eastern Zimbabwe, 1901-1942
Author:Dube, Francis
Year:2015
Periodical:Journal of Southern African Studies (ISSN 1465-3893)
Volume:41
Issue:2
Pages:219-235
Language:English
Geographic terms:Mozambique
Zimbabwe
Subjects:animal diseases
veterinary medicine
border control
colonial history
External link:https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2015.1012904
Abstract:This article examines the implications of the border on the control of East Coast Fever in colonial Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The outbreak of the disease in Rhodesia in 1901 caused much anxiety among Portuguese veterinary officials, who were concerned that the disease could cross the border into their territory and destroy their livestock industry. Resultant efforts to control this and other livestock diseases in these colonies were often accompanied by racial application of veterinary policies which benefited Europeans at the expense of Africans. East Coast Fever, together with the 1896-97 Rinderpest epidemic, thus contributed immensely to the development of veterinary science, the burgeoning functions of the colonial state, and the relations between state and subject in rural areas. Hence, through an examination of English and Portuguese colonial documents, the paper argues that the existence of East Coast Fever in Zimbabwe, and the impossibility of sealing the border to prevent cattle mobility, raised alarm, and contributed to the expansion of veterinary services in central Mozambique. The article contributes to debates on the significance of borders in shaping historical processes, but complicates border studies by demonstrating that the border was powerful not because it was restrictive but because it was porous. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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