"Social Justice and Medicine: Lessons from Apartheid South Africa”

What can apartheid South Africa teach us about health and social justice? Ideas such as the social determinants of health, the effects of stress, teamwork in medicine, and community participation in care trip off our tongues today. But some of their important histories can be traced to an unlikely place: apartheid South Africa. This talk explores how the South African government established community-based medicine and clinics—and how, as apartheid deepened, those same clinics and their practitioners became sites of opposition, in South Africa and beyond.

In conjunction with the exhibition Healing in Apartheid South Africa: Michael Goldblatt's Photographs of the Alex Clinic, on view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art through February 7, 2027, Karin Shapiro will give a presentation followed by comments from Sarah Duff, Associate Professor of History at Colby College, and David Gordon, Roger Howell, Jr. Professor of History, Bowdoin College.

Karin Shapiro is a professor in the Department of African & African American Studies at Duke University. She writes and teaches about the histories of the American South and South Africa. She is especially interested in public history and in connecting academic scholarship with broader audiences.

Bowdoin College is committed to providing an accessible and welcoming environment. Please contact the Events Office ([email protected] or 207-725-3433) with any questions regarding the accessibility of this event and/or to request accommodations. Please note: some accommodations require advance notice and may require documentation of a disabling condition.

Photo credit: David Cassel, Cooking Demonstration Pholela, c. 1940s - 1950s, Image courtesy of Gillian Cassel