Focus on CGHH Research - Nutrition Projects in Colonial Fiji, 1945-60

Sarah Hartley is a third year PhD student at CGHH, researching the racial politics of maternal and child health in post-war Fiji. Part of this research has recently appeared in Medical History, titled 'Interweaving Ideas and Patchwork programmes: Nutrition Projects in Colonial Fiji, 1945-60’. The article is fully open access and available to read via Medical History's website.

Sarah’s article brings to light the influence of a range of actors in nutrition projects in the South Pacific during the period after the Second World War. These included international trends in nutritional science, changing ideas within the British establishment about state responsibility for the welfare of its citizens and the responsibility of the British Empire for its subjects. It also explores the mixture of outside scrutiny and support for projects from post-war international and multi-governmental organisations, such as the South Pacific Commission. Nutrition research and projects conducted in Fiji for the colonial South Pacific Health Service and the colonial government also sought to address territory-specific socio-political issues, especially Fiji’s complex ethnic politics. Sarah’s study examines the subtle ways in which nutrition studies and policies reflected and reinforced these wider socio-political trends. She suggests that historians should approach health research and policy as a patchwork of territorial, international, and regional ideas and priorities, rather than looking for a single causality.

Sarah's work was funded by the Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation, which supports scientists and researchers to take on big problems, fuel imaginations, and spark debate.

You can find out more about Sarah’s research and other research projects at CGHH via the Centre’s website.