Ecology of Tuberculosis in India

The book addresses the issue of disease diffusion across the geographical span of India during the colonial period. Based on archival records, it analyses colonial economic policies and their implications for the spread of the disease across different regions of India as well as the role of the military in disease spread. It adds a new dimension to the understanding of the spread of TB in colonial India.
The book also discusses the concept of the meaning of illness for different cohorts of TB patients. Based on narratives, it brings to readers the social and cultural dimensions that are responsible for the prevalence of the disease, despite having vaccination and medication available for more than half a century.
The book will be beneficial to health and medical geographers and will bring new insights in historical geography as well as the history of medicine, by incorporating policy changes and their implication in disease spread.Sociologists and public health professionals will find narratives of patients interesting and useful for furthering their understanding.

Elaborates how political and economic decisions shaped the ecologies of TB during the colonial period Provides readers with a sense of the geography of the disease beyond administrative units by mapping across ecological regions Reveals the prevailing gendered stigma through analysis of the "Meaning of Illness" for TB patients

Autorentext

Bikramaditya K. Choudhary teaches at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University since May 2013. Prior to joining JNU, he taught for about 9 years at Banaras Hindu University. He has over two dozen publications in different Journals and Books on issues of political ecology, development, informal economy, waste-pickers, history of tuberculosis, ecology of disease, regional disparity and other related issues of development. He has edited a book titled City, Space and the Politics in the Global South (Manohar 2019/Routledge2020). His current area of research includes urban services, urban identity formation and spatial segregation. Currently, he is engaged with three externally funded projects on the issue of water security, access, and transformative pathways towards urban sustainability.

Inhalt
Chapter 1. The Burden of Tuberculosis.- Chapter 2. Spatiality of Tuberculosis.- Chapter 3. Changing Geographies of Tuberculosis.- Chapter 4. Containing Tuberculosis during Colonial Period.- Chapter 5. Combating Tuberculosis in Independent India.- Chapter 6. Patients, Professionals and Narratives.- Chapter 7. Tuberculosis: A Medical Mirage.- Index.