How professions maintain coloniality: interprofessional strategies in the history of travel medicine

Luis Aue

Review of International Political Economy, 2025, vol. 32, issue 6, 2280-2310

Abstract: This article conceptualises how the political economy of interprofessional competition and compromises has sustained colonialist professional practices. When professions distinguish their work along the lines of colonial difference, they can benefit from maintaining hierarchies between the metropole and periphery. The historical analysis indicates how the travel medicine profession continues to enact coloniality, mirroring colonial tropical medicine by providing superior care for metropolitan travelers against global diseases. I theorise how professional groups have collaborated to reproduce colonialist practices. First, travel medicine established closure from other medical professional groups by forming professional bodies dedicated to treating travelers. Second, travel medicine established interprofessional bridges that enabled the equity-oriented international/global health profession to profit from the exclusionary treatment of travelers. Third, international/global health professionals have benefitted from interprofessional arbitrage by shifting knowledge and ignorance to travel medicine. Focusing especially on the treatment of diarrheal diseases, this article contributes by demonstrating how the political economy of professions can shed light on the persistence of colonialist practices.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2025.2535421

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