Malaria and Empire in Bahrain, 1931-1947

Modern understandings of malaria as a mosquito-borne disease embedded in human-environment interactions prompted British officials to intervene in the daily sanitary practices of Gulf populations. But histories of the Gulf have neglected the centrality of disease in shaping local experiences of empire, state-building, and modernization. This article examines urban and agricultural infrastructure, imperial science, and indigenous notions of the relationship between health and environment through the lens of British anti-malaria efforts in Bahrain. Tracing the flow of science and expertise from British India to the Gulf allows for the ground-level reconstruction of imperial interventions and the resulting interactions with local people. The movement of scientific and medical knowledge from British India to Bahrain resulted in a new milieu of state intervention at a micropolitical level, which prompted British officials to elide and delegitimize indigenous disease imaginaries and water use.