Paper Short Abstract:

Combining historical epidemiology with social anthropology I explore why malaria eradication was successful in 1940s Colonial Cyprus and identify what can be learnt for addressing mosquito diseases today. I then explore the more theoretical question of the relationship between location and disease.

Paper Abstract:

In the late 1940's the Anopheles Eradication Programme (AEP) led to Cyprus becoming arguably the first country to eradicate malaria. The programme was designed and led by 'a local' on behalf of intersecting colonial interests within a colonially occupied country. This programme barely exists within the collective memory of Cypriots and is almost entirely absent from global histories of malaria despite being widely celebrated at the time. How do we make sense of this programme? A programme that breaks multiple binaries; around human health vs wildlife health in relation to short term and long term consequences of DDT, a colonial programme that eradicated malaria within a colony - an amazing feat of public health under colonialism, a programme that actually worked yet remains absent from the discourse of a billion dollar industry supposedly invested in controlling and eradicating malaria. What is going on? How does this make sense? How were Cypriots, who had spent decades being told they couldn't look after themselves but needed British leaders, able to rise to the occasion and lead this momentous feat of public health?

Based on extensive archival research across three continents, participant observation across all areas of Cyprus, filmmaking, ethnography, and a range of multimodal methods this paper draws on the work of Green (2005, 2022), D'Souza (2009) and Napier (2003) to explore the connections and disconnections that configure mosquito-relations in Cyprus past and present.