Towards a History of Medical Missions

Scholars concerned with the European colonial period have been able to draw on a vast body of primary sources preserved in official archives. While the military may have been the ultimate arbitrators of their power, the colonial states were highly bureaucratic. They generated, and indeed depended upon, an unending flow of information that was collected, collated and archived as an organized body of knowledge. That knowledge was obviously shaped by particular perspectives, interests and power complexes. The colonial period also coincided with an explosion in literacy rates in the metropolis and a genuine post-Enlightenment ‘‘spirit of enquiry’’; a belief that the world could be properly known through the scientific collation of information. In that wider context, the political intentions of a ‘‘native’’ chief and the varieties of local butterflies were equally important matters to record, and colonial officers gathered such information both as a part of their work and as a contribution to a wider knowledge of the world. That overlap ensured that colonial archives of knowledge existed in a complex relationship with European political power. The all-encompassing nature of the colonial records has attracted scholars in all disciplines, and promoted their hegemony in historical enquiry. Indeed, researching in and gaining a working knowledge of at least one such archive is virtually a rite of passage for doctoral students. As a result of decades of such research, the great archives of state have been frequently and thoroughly mined. Colonial records in regional repositories have also been located, examined and analysed, while private or family collections have been enthusiastically sought out and their documents made available to a wider public. Extensive work on these official records means that we are well informed as to the nature and processes of the colonial state. We have authoritative studies of the mind, body and actions of its civil and military officials, and the political, economic and environmental consequences of their policies. In addition, we have drawn on these archives in determining the imperial impact on indigenous societies and the nature, reactions and discourses of the local peoples, both elite and non-elite. In recognition of the complex relationship between power and knowledge in the colonial process, and the preconceptions, perspectives and imperatives shaping the collation of information in the colonial state, we have developed theoretical and methodological