Research project
Power asymmetries between Western pharmaceutical companies and the so-called “Global South” and their health consequences for large parts of the world's population are a recurring topic in discussions about global inequality. However, the pharmaceutical industry was and is dependent on raw materials from the “Global South” to produce many medicines. The relationship is therefore more contingent: Power asymmetries between the pharmaceutical industry and the “Global South” are not self-evident, but require explanation.
Taking quinine, an alkaloid used as an antimalarial, cardiac and stimulant, and the raw material cinchona bark, which is necessary for its production, as an example, the project writes a political history of the pharmaceutical industry in the “Global South” in the age of decolonization. It analyzes the relationships between Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (or Zaire), the largest producers of cinchona bark, and the European quinine manufacturers. Decolonization destroyed the colonial structures of production, distribution and consumption of quinine, which were dominated by a cartel of pharmaceutical and plantation companies: The alkaloid and the position of European pharma companies became the objects of negotiation processes between many actors. The project examines why European pharmaceutical companies were able to maintain their position in the quinine business in this process, even though Congo/Zaire and Indonesia had a de facto monopoly on quinine bark.
The project makes an important contribution to the history of Western companies in the post-colonial world, which has so far been the subject of little empirical research - and thus to the question of how global inequalities were perpetuated after the end of the empires. The project questions the dichotomous narrative of powerful pharmaceutical companies and the powerless “Global South”. Instead, it makes visible the many producers of global inequality after the end of empires.
