Introduction

Abstract

The introduction explores the books’ main themes, protagonists and goals. The aim is to extend the history of hygiene in two ways: firstly, beyond scientific and secular narratives by showing that religious stakeholders crucially participated in producing and promoting hygienic knowledge between 1885 and 1914; and secondly, by analysing how hygiene was shaped by colonial entanglements. The introduction offers a brief research review highlighting the connected histories on which this history of hygiene is built: mission history, particularly mission medicine; the history of science, with a focus on tropical medicine; and colonial history, specifically the knowledge produced in colonial entanglements. To do so, it introduces the concept of “spaces of knowledge” as an analytical lens to demonstrate how different discourses and practices of hygiene overlapped, differed and influenced each other. These spaces of knowledge are examined through an extensive body of sources, including archival material, publications, images and commodities, which are briefly presented and critically discussed with regard to their limitations and challenges.