Date of Award
1-1-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A. in History
First Advisor
Zachary K. Guthrie
Second Advisor
Mohammed B. Salau
Third Advisor
Joshua First
School
University of Mississippi
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
This study examines the role of colonial health films as both public health education tools and instruments of imperial propaganda in Nigeria, with a focus on the 1924 Bubonic Plague outbreak in Lagos. Through archival materials, secondary sources and visual analysis of films such as Anti-Plague Operations, this study investigates how British authorities used visual media to frame sanitation efforts as essential to public health while simultaneously championing narratives of African “backwardness” and the necessity of colonial intervention. By portraying Nigerian urban spaces as unsanitary and disease-ridden, these films legitimized British-led health campaigns and urban planning projects and promoted the colonial state as the sole agent of modernization. A central theme of this research is the symbolic and ideological function of visual imagery, particularly the portrayal of rats as markers of disease, African hygiene as inadequate, and British medical expertise as superior. The study also explores how mobile cinema vans and health propaganda campaigns extended these messages beyond urban centers, embedding colonial authority into the everyday lives of Nigerian subjects. However, while these films were designed as tools of instruction and control, audience responses were far from uniform. Nigerian viewers engaged with the films in diverse ways, sometimes resisting or subverting their intended messages. By situating colonial health films within the broader historiography of imperial governance, public health, and media studies, this thesis contributes to ongoing discussions about the politics of disease control, the construction of colonial knowledge, and African agency in responding to imperial interventions. It argues that British health campaigns were not purely humanitarian efforts but served as mechanisms of social discipline, racial hierarchy, and colonial legitimacy
Recommended Citation
Okafor, Sochima Peppertus, "Sanitation, Hygiene, Bubonic Plague and Colonial Health Instructional Films in Lagos, Nigeria, 1924-1939." (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3346.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/3346