Disease and Health in the Aftermath of Political Partitions

This two-day interdisciplinary conference aims to bring together scholars from across the humanities and social sciences to deliberate on contexts of health and disease within histories of political partitions across the world, examining the complex intersections between health, disease, and political partitions in global history. The conference will focus on major territorial and political ruptures in global history such as the Indian Partition/Formation of Pakistan (1947), the Partition of Palestine/ Formation of Israel (1948), the Irish Partition resulting in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland (1921), the Division of Korea into South Korea and North Korea (1945–1953), the Partition of Pakistan/Formation of Bangladesh (1971) and the Partition of Sudan/Formation of South Sudan (2011). It offers a comparative framework to explore how public health crises have been ushered in by—and have responded to—such moments of national and territorial division.

While histories of partition have often been studied through the prisms of nationalism, (re)configurations of national identity, violence, and displacement, this conference invites a shift in focus to the medical, embodied, affective, and infrastructural dimensions of these events. How did individuals, communities and states navigate disease outbreaks, epidemics, psychological trauma, and the strain on health systems amid mass displacement and border redefinition? What were the roles of colonial medicine, the colonial underpinnings of postcolonial health contexts, humanitarian organisations, and emerging healthcare policies in the new nation states in these moments of rupture?

Keynote Speakers:

Prof. Nayanika Mookherjee (Professor in Political Anthropology at Durham University)

Prof. Claire Chambers (Professor of Global Literature at the University of York)

Key themes include:

● Health and disease as discursive frameworks within the formation of new nation states

● Displacement and disease in refugee camps in post-partition contexts

● Mental health and trauma in post-partition societies

● Health infrastructures in newly formed or contested states

● Health and citizenship

● Colonial medicine and its legacies in postcolonial contexts

● Illness, care, and healing in cultural and literary narratives

We particularly welcome proposals from graduate researchers and early-career scholars. To support participation, we are pleased to offer three travel bursary awards of £200 each for postgraduate students or early career scholars who have not yet attained a permanent academic position and who are presenting papers at the conference.

Call for Papers

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers that engage with the conference themes from historical, literary, sociological, or interdisciplinary perspectives. Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words, outlining your paper’s focus, argument, and how it connects to the conference theme. Include your name, institutional affiliation (if any), and a bio (100 words max).

Location: [This event will be a predominantly In-person event held at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. However, there may be an option to present papers online in exceptional cases for selected participants who can justify not attending in person]

Submission Deadline: [20 August 2025]

Please send abstracts for consideration to: [email protected]

Conference Conveners:

Dr. Antara Chatterjee, Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal, India, British Academy Visiting Fellow at Queen's University Belfast

Dr. Ashok Malhotra, Senior Lecturer in History, School of History, Anthropology, Politics and Philosophy, Queen's University Belfast

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