{"id":3768,"date":"2024-01-24T10:00:34","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T09:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=3768"},"modified":"2024-01-05T11:58:10","modified_gmt":"2024-01-05T10:58:10","slug":"gender-race-and-class-at-work-enlisting-african-health-labour-into-the-gold-coast-medical-service-1860-1957","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2024\/01\/24\/gender-race-and-class-at-work-enlisting-african-health-labour-into-the-gold-coast-medical-service-1860-1957\/","title":{"rendered":"Gender, Race and Class at Work: Enlisting African Health Labour into the Gold Coast Medical Service, 1860\u20131957"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Article Summary by Lucky Tomdi<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This article is part of an ongoing project that examines the historical roles and experiences of African health workers in Ghana during the late 19th and 20th centuries. It examines how gender, race, and class shaped the participation of Africans in colonial and Christian missionary biomedical services from 1860 to 1957. I focus on how European and African gendered ideologies, racial discrimination, and class differences influenced the recruitment and training of Africans into early colonial and missionary medical services. The expansion of biomedical services led to the enlistment of Africans, but recruitment occurred within racial and gendered boundaries. European gendered ideologies about African women and African traditional gender norms worked to marginalise women\u2019s involvement in the biomedical service. African men dominated the occupational categories of doctors, orderlies, dispensers, nurses, and midwives until the 1940s when more women began to enter the medical service. Also, recruiting Africans into the colonial medical service was necessary to augment insufficient European staffing across many occupations, but not to the same rank and class. The relationship between African and European medical staff, and colonial administrators in the Gold Coast Medical Department from the 1890s shows the existence of racial discrimination largely based on physical appearance and intellectualism from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries. This research identifies the pathways to the formalised and contemporary structure of biomedical health professions in Ghana.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Read the full article on <a href=\"https:\/\/mh.bmj.com\/content\/49\/4\/623\"><strong>the <em>Medical Humanities <\/em>journal website<\/strong><\/a>.<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-3769\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2024\/01\/Tomdi-Lucky-Gender-Race-and-Class-at-Work-Enlisting-African-Health-Labour-into-the-Gold-Coast-Medical-Service-1860\u20131957-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2024\/01\/Tomdi-Lucky-Gender-Race-and-Class-at-Work-Enlisting-African-Health-Labour-into-the-Gold-Coast-Medical-Service-1860\u20131957-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2024\/01\/Tomdi-Lucky-Gender-Race-and-Class-at-Work-Enlisting-African-Health-Labour-into-the-Gold-Coast-Medical-Service-1860\u20131957.jpg 195w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/>Lucky Tomdi is a PhD student in the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. His research interest is in the history of health, medicine, science, race, and gender with a focus on the development of health systems, professions, and patient care. His current research looks at the professionalization of African health labour within colonial and Christian missionary biomedical health infrastructures over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast). This project examines the silenced roles, agency, and contributions of Africans who across intersectional categories worked to sustain biomedical healthcare.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=b1aVAJ4AAAAJ&amp;hl=en\"><strong>Google Scholar<\/strong><\/a> | <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0463-5797\">ORCID iD<\/a><\/strong> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/profile\/Lucky-Tomdi\"><strong>ResearchGate<\/strong><\/a> | <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/lucky-tomdi-77a49512a\/\">LinkedIn<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article Summary by Lucky Tomdi This article is part of an ongoing project that examines the historical roles and experiences of African health workers in Ghana during the late 19th and 20th centuries. It examines how gender, race, and class shaped the participation of Africans in colonial and Christian missionary biomedical services from 1860 to [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2024\/01\/24\/gender-race-and-class-at-work-enlisting-african-health-labour-into-the-gold-coast-medical-service-1860-1957\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15028,15047],"tags":[15044],"class_list":["post-3768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal-announcements","category-special-issues","tag-research"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Gender, Race and Class at Work: Enlisting African Health Labour into the Gold Coast Medical Service, 1860\u20131957 - Medical Humanities<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lucky Tomdi writes about &#039;the historical roles and experiences of African health workers in Ghana&#039; in the late 19th &amp; 20thC in today&#039;s article summary.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=3768\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gender, Race and Class at Work: Enlisting African Health Labour into the Gold Coast Medical Service, 1860\u20131957 - Medical Humanities\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lucky Tomdi writes about &#039;the historical roles and experiences of African health workers in Ghana&#039; in the late 19th &amp; 20thC in today&#039;s article summary.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=3768\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Medical Humanities\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-01-24T09:00:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chris Pak\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chris Pak\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=3768#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=3768\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Chris Pak\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0e11c1a9a0f1f9f2aa898a719652c44c\"},\"headline\":\"Gender, Race and Class at Work: Enlisting African Health Labour into the Gold Coast Medical Service, 1860\u20131957\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-01-24T09:00:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=3768\"},\"wordCount\":361,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"research\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Journal Announcements\",\"Special Issues\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=3768#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=3768\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=3768\",\"name\":\"Gender, Race and Class at Work: Enlisting African Health Labour into the Gold Coast Medical Service, 1860\u20131957 - 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