"Health is Wealth": The Intersection of Health, Commodity Culture and Consumption in Colonial Africa

通过健康的多面镜头探索殖民非洲商品文化的兴起，暴露了欧洲帝国主义的一个持久和严重未被研究的方面。商品被定义为“权力的货币”，在殖民背景下具有道德和物质意义，商品在性质和目的上不断演变和扩大，以反映霸权国家不断变化的欲望、需求和遗产。这一分析试图举例说明，从最早的传教士时代，当福音派和不墨守成俗的团体充当“帝国的第一批步兵”时，一直到殖民时代晚期（下文定义为第二次世界大战结束后的时期），殖民非洲的帝国代理人、意识形态和实践不可避免地将健康和商品化交织在一起。

Exploring the rise of commodity culture in colonial Africa through the multifaceted lens of health exposes an enduring and critically understudied facet of European imperialism. Defined as 'currencies of power' and objects of moral-material significance in the colonial context, commodities evolved and expanded in nature and purpose to reflect the changing desires, demands and legacies of hegemonic states. This analysis seeks to exemplify that from the earliest missionary days, when evangelical and non-conformist groups served as the 'first foot soldiers of empire', through to the late colonial age, defined hereafter as the period following the end of the Second World War, imperial agents, ideologies and practices inextricably wove together health and commodification in colonial Africa.