Mortal Remains as Biohazard: Chinese Repatriation, Plague Epidemiology, and Biopolitical Governance in Sài Gòn–Chợ Lớn, 1890–1898
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Description
This article examines French efforts to disrupt the transfer of 2000 Chinese remains from Sài Gòn-Chợ Lớn to Hong-Kong in 1892. French officials cited bio-hazardous threats as grounds for legal interdiction, infuriating Cantonese leaders who demanded the removal of bureaucratic obstacles to repatriations. Situating French epidemiology in a global bubonic outbreak, this article shows how colonial panic activated a racialized biopolitics that demonized Chinese “bodies” as plague-borne menaces and justified its drastic measures. As inter-imperial competitions for biomedical research intensified, transnational Chinese practices, perceived as undermining public health initiatives, became a flashpoint of conflicts over hygiene, mobility, and inter-ethnic interactions.
Publication Date
Spring 5-1-2023
Publisher
Journal of Vietnamese Studies, University of California Press
City
Berkeley
Keywords
Chinese migration, public health, repatriation, colonialism, epidemiology, Sài Gòn-Chợ Lớn
Disciplines
Asian History | East Asian Languages and Societies | History | History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Social History
Recommended Citation
Le, Anh, "Mortal Remains as Biohazard: Chinese Repatriation, Plague Epidemiology, and Biopolitical Governance in Sài Gòn–Chợ Lớn, 1890–1898" (2023). Faculty Creative and Scholarly Works. 56.
https://digitalcommons.snc.edu/faculty_staff_works/56
