Sulfones, Sickness and Segregation? The Landscapes of Leprosy Care in Congo (1930- 1970)

This proposed research aims to investigate the evolution of the treatment, experience and sociocultural significance of leprosy in Congo between 1930 and 1970. After being known for centuries as an incurable disease, the sulfone therapy succeeded in effectively curing leprosy around 1950. In the preceding period, missionaries and colonial authorities established leprosaria in their African colonies. In doing so, they followed the socio-cultural schemes that had taken shape in the centuries before. Within the existing historiography, the introduction of the sulfones is often presented as the endpoint of colonial leprosy care in leprosaria. The Belgian colony of Congo, however – known for its very high number of leprosy patients – took a different path. It expanded its network of leprosaria and combined isolation with sulfone treatments. The proposed research project aims to understand this survival and adaptation in a transnational perspective. It will take an innovative approach to this unstudied history that gave colonial leprosaria a second life. The Congolese agency is a central theme to this research, during the colonial period, but also after political independence, when these (former) colonial institutions started a third life. An extensive corpus of archival, material and oral sources stemming from all different types of actors involved will be used. These sources will be analysed by close reading, (audio)visual analysis and ethnographic fieldwork.