Visualizing a Healthy Village: UNESCO Fundamental Education Pilot Project in China
Abstract
Seven decades ago, UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) concluded that health education was an integral element in educational programs that targeted holistic societal development and that health education was not only most needed in China but also universal in many colonial Asian societies and other underdeveloped countries. Against this backdrop, UNESCO and China cooperated in an experiment on public health education with audio-visual aids, the experience of which was considered valuable for vast underdeveloped countries and circulated via UNESCO clear house across the globe. Locating in a long history of transcultural dialogue on illness between China and the West, this article closely examines this UNESCO-China joint pilot project of “the Healthy Village”. This article illustrates how the verbal and visual representation of illness and scientific-medical knowledge was negotiated, accommodated, and mediated among UNESCO experts, Chinese local activists, and local villagers to build up a theater of medical truth during the production and application of audio-visual aids such as posters, booklets, film slides, and animation et cetera in this pilot project. With simple and vivid materials, this UNESCO-China joint project attempted to teach Chinese villagers basic medical knowledge and to practice personal and public hygiene in household and community activities. The goal was to prevent infectious diseases that could be spread between animals and humans and build physical fitness in the broader development framework. In this sense, “the Healthy Village” pilot project was a preliminary experiment with the idea of “One Health”.
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