Seventeenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

This study focuses on refugee health policies from an institutional perspective. Specifically, the League of Nation’s policies are explicated in reference to archive sources to unravel how the early international institutionalism approached the question of refugee health. This question is examined on a multi-layered basis. The first layer unfolds the institutional mindset and the second layer displays several refugee treatment practices. It is underlined that the international mind generated a series of new practices and institutions ranging from rations to convalescence houses. However, it is argued that these practices and institutions were filtered through time and space. Some of them like the notion of ration have evolved into the “diet,” as an internationally recognized institutional practice supported by scientific authorities, colonial suppliers and governmental policies. Some of them have been customized into different local cases and some others have been incorporated into general public health policies. In any case, the international refugee health policies brought a new impetus and dynamism for the public health policies in general. It is suggested that the durability and evolution of these policies not only helped to differentiate the “patient” from the “healthy” but also drew the line between the “foreigner” and “citizen” from the governmental point of view.