Imperial landscapes of health: place, plants and people between India and Australia, 1800s-1900s.
In the nineteenth century, place bore immediately and urgently on questions of imperialism, race, and health. This article considers European strategies to control local environments and improve healthiness through the exchange of people, plants, ideas and garden designs between India and Australia. Migration removed Europeans from unhealthy environments, either permanently (to Australia and elsewhere) or temporarily (to hill stations in India). Trees like the eucalyptus were introduced into India to enhance European health, based on belief they drained sources of disease. I argue a crucial new understanding of the intersection between health and place in the nineteenth-century British Empire can be provided by tracing the networks through which people, plants, and ideas moved to consider the broader imperial frameworks.
University of Waikato, New Zealand.
James
J
Beattie
D001315:Australia; D018595:Colonialism / Q000266:history*; D003132:Commerce / Q000266:history; D004641:Emigration and Immigration / Q000266:history*; D004777:Environment; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D010944:Plants; D006113:United Kingdom