Join USAS for a talk by Professor Killian McCormack about U.S. Military Presence in Africa.

When: Thursday, November 30, 2-3 pm

Where: 1 Devonshire Ave, Room 108N

Register: https://forms.gle/hXwNzrmZDx1nAzpa9

This talk will deal with the U.S. military’s changing global health engagement practices on the African continent. Over the last two decades, the U.S. military has taken up new practices under the banner of global health engagement, such as epidemic response, and expanded older practices, such as disease research and surveillance. The growth of the military’s health engagement practices has coincided with a renewed expansion of the military’s global footprint through the war on terror. This expanding footprint is epitomized by the creation of the geographic combatant command for Africa, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), in 2008. Though couched in humanitarian framings, the military’s contemporary “global health engagement” practices cannot be separated from the violent practices of the ongoing war on terror, U.S. imperialism, and longer histories of colonialism. In examining the military’s health engagement practices, the talk will deal with the changing geographies of U.S. imperialism and U.S. warfare, and the shifting intersections between geopolitics and global health.