Curative powers : medicine and empire in Stalin's Central Asia

Curative Powers combines post-colonial theory with ethnographic research to reconstructs how the Soviet government used medicine and public health policy to transform the society, politics, and culture of its outlying regions, specifically Kazakhstan.
Winner of the 2003 Heldt Prize from the Association for Women in Slavic Studies.

• List of Acronyms and Abbreviations p. ix
• Note on Terminology p. xi
• Acknowledgments p. xv
• Introduction p. 1
• Part I Discourse
• Chapter 1 Kazakh Medicine and Russian Colonialism, 1861-1928 p. 21
• A Brief History of Kazakhstan p. 21
• Kazakh Ethnomedical Practices p. 24
• Russian Orientalism and Kazakh Medicine p. 35
• The Roots of Biomedicine in Kazakhstan p. 41
• Conclusion p. 44
• Chapter 2 Medical Propaganda and Cultural Revolution p. 46
• Origins and Methods of Biomedical Propaganda p. 48
• The Construction of Kazakh Culture in Biomedical Propaganda p. 51
• The Doctor-Hero in Biomedical Propaganda p. 59
• Limits and Impact of the Biomedical Drive p. 64
• Conclusion p. 68
• Part II Institution-Building
• Chapter 3 Medical Education and the Formation of a New Elite p. 73
• The Expansion of Biomedical Education p. 76
• Nativization and Medical Education p. 81
• Interethnic Relations and Political Persecution p. 86
• The Politics of the Medical Curriculum p. 96
• Conclusion p. 101
• Chapter 4 Building Socialism: Medical Cadres in the Field p. 103
• Facility Expansion and Cadre Distribution p. 104
• Obstacles to Effective Health Care p. 109
• The Impact of Medical and Public Health Services p. 120
• Conclusion p. 124
• Part III Practice
• Chapter 5 The Politics of Women's Health Care p. 129
• Kazakh Women's Everyday Life and Bolshevik Visions of Emancipation p. 130
• Kazakh Women and the OMM: Clinical Practice and Beyond p. 134
• Abortion and Pronatalism p. 142
• Wartime and Postwar OMM Services p. 146
• Conclusion p. 150
• Chapter 6 Medical and Public Health Policy toward the Kazakh Nomads p. 153
• "Islands in the Steppe": Red Yurts and Communist Policy p. 154
• Collectivization and Sedentarization of the Nomads p. 164
• Kazakhstan's Nomads and Medical Care after Collectivization p. 170
• Conclusion p. 174
• Conclusion p. 177
• Notes p. 183
• Selected Bibliography p. 225
• Index p. 235