This roundtable explores new approaches and methodologies to the histories of health in modern Latin America. The historiography on medicine and health in Latin America has developed considerably in the last two decades. Historians have examined the political, social, and cultural aspects of public health campaigns, particularly the efforts to eradicate epidemics and infectious disease. They have also considered the role medical professionals played in nation-building processes, shaping urban reforms, immigration criteria, and eugenic-based social policies. More recently, scholars have shed light on how gendered and racial doctrines influenced medical knowledge and practices, paying particular attention to overlooked histories of reproductive and indigenous health. This panel expands the growing literature by exploring the broader meanings and practices of health—from above and below as well as through local and global lenses.

The presentations, which will ultimately be featured in a special issue of Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe, shed light on the intersections of healthcare and politics, gender, and religion, as well as consider how racial views about culture and indigeneity informed the medical profession and national policies. Elizabeth O'Brien’s paper looks into the historical roots of medical racism in Mexico’s reproductive healthcare. Focusing on the first cesarean operation performed in a Mexican hospital (1884), the presentation demonstrates how ideas about women’s biological, scientific, social, and racial “worth” to Mexico’s national progress shaped approaches to reproductive care and surgery. David Carey Jr.’s paper reveals how medical professionals in early twentieth-century Guatemala and Ecuador associated indigenous “cultural traits” with the spread of typhoid. That link not only stigmatized indigenous communities but also allowed the state to disregard structural and social determinants of health. Hanni Jalil’s paper examines Colombia’s efforts to promote national “cultural uplift” through sanitation campaigns in the 1930s. These initiatives provided services to Colombian rural workers but also reproduced cultural stereotypes that perpetuated social inequities and the spread of disease. Sarah Walsh considers how Chilean physicians in the early twentieth century relied on racialized and eugenic theories to promote their nation’s supposed racial superiority in various international arenas, particularly medical conferences. Alberto Ortiz Díaz examines how professionals employed behavioral healthcare approaches as a response to alcohol (ab)use in Puerto Rican prisons between the 1940s and 1960s. The paper elucidates not only how the state regulated carceral healthcare models but also how incarcerated people defined the problem of alcohol (ab)use. Lastly, Eyal Weinberg’s paper explores controversies around efforts to promote family planning during the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985), revealing how ideas about population control, national reproduction, and Cold War geopolitics shaped healthcare policies in the country.