HomeSocial Control and Health Issues: The Role of «Sanitary Policing»

Social Control and Health Issues: The Role of «Sanitary Policing»

Contrôle social et questions sanitaires : autour de la « police sanitaire »

Control social y sanidad: en torno a la «policía sanitaria»

« Amnis », revue d’études des sociétés et cultures contemporaines Europe-Amérique

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Published on Monday, November 03, 2025

Abstract

This call for papers for Amnis Journal invites researchers to reflect specifically on social control – in its broadest interpretation – with regard to health issues. The focus for this call for papers is on the period between the 19th and the 21st centuries on the European and American continents. Comparisons with colonial areas, which are often true laboratories for social and health control policies, and with previous situations will also be accepted.

Announcement

Argument

The concept of «sanitary policing» has attracted new interest in recent years, in that it has raised questions about forms of social control with regard to health issues . The COVID epidemic has revived interrogations about territorialisation of safety arrangements, implication of institutional and non-institutional players and challenges, and launched research in legal fields and human sciences. 

Reflections have focused notably on a dual approach to prevention - the fight against epidemics and preventing contagion – and highlighted, thanks to research on police services, to what extent policing rules have gradually clarified the scope for action left more or less undefined by governments. This lack of precision has led, in fact, to an adaptation of public intervention methods to contingent reality in order to act effectively and at times to take innovate approaches for preventing health risks. 

This call for papers invites researchers to reflect specifically on social control – in its broadest interpretation – with regard to health issues.

Thus, comparisons of historical, temporal and spatial situations may shed light on similarities and discontinuities, notably in those areas where the State has developed and gradually taken responsibility for health issues. In these spaces, which are still partially unidentified and for which their development has not yet been defined, what new forms of social control have emerged? Who are the new players in health control? How have they gradually constituted – or not – groups based on common practices or professional cultures? On the other hand, some situations reveal that the State has not been able to impose its policies universally or that it has not addressed every potential health problem. With regard to this hypothesis, how have certain players – whether institutional or informal – continued to play a role? Have they maintained prior methods of health control? Furthermore, have they managed to make improvements?

The focus for this call for papers is on the period between the 19th and the 21st centuries on the European and American continents.

Comparisons with colonial areas, which are often true laboratories for social and health control policies , and with previous situations will also be accepted: e.g. to what extent have 18th-century epidemics provided a starting point rather than merely as the «end» to pre-industrial contagions? Similarly, was the 19th century so very different, in terms of various features, from the period of the Enlightenment? Did the microbiological revolution create a rupture in social control practices? Authors are invited to develop a combination, as far as possible, of different temporal approaches. All these, and many other, aspects could be discussed within the following framework (which should not be interpreted as either exclusive or exhaustive): 

  • in terms of practical arrangements, what measures have been envisaged and which have been proved effective?
  • differences in scale: to what extent have local, regional and national ‘authorities’ worked together on these issues?
  • forms and methods of commitment and participation: how have health and social control measures been based on acceptance by the population and also on the population’s participation (according to incremental forms that could be studied and qualified) in these measures, notably in local districts and neighbourhoods?
  • interactions between knowledge and power: with the presence of health crises and control structures for health questions, what types of administrative, police and governmental information have emerged? Who has generated this information? Has it only emerged at the national level or has it developed at a more localised level in terms of identifying – and containing – disease and populations?

Quite apart from these precise and somewhat technical questions, there are much broader issues relating to politics, in its broadest interpretation. How are societal interactions and power relationships affected by the need to contain the «epidemic»? How has the «common weal» been affected, and how does this seem to occur because of true power struggles between (various) population and political institutions at all levels?

Interdisciplinarity is an essential element for this call for papers and proposals from a variety of disciplines will be welcome.

Submission guidelines

Proposals of articles should be no more than 30 lines long. They can be submitted in English, French and Spanish, accompanied by the author’s curriculum vitae, before 20 December 2025 to this email address: severiano.rojohernandez@univ-amu.fr

Accepted articles must be submitted no later than 15 June 2026. After review by the Journal’s Scientific Committee and by two external reviewers, articles will be published on the journal’s web site in October 2026.

Scientific Committee

  • Angel Alcalde, University of Melbourne, Australie, Histoire.
  • Óscar Álvarez Gila, Universidad del País Vasco, (Vitoria), Espagne, Histoire.
  • Sylvie Aprile, Université de Paris-Ouest Nanterre, France, Histoire.
  • Avner Ben-Amos, Université de Tel-Aviv, Israël, Histoire.
  • Zoraida Carandell, Université de Paris-Ouest Nanterre, France, Littérature et culture espagnoles.
  • Martine Chalvet, Aix Marseille Université, France, Histoire.
  • Paulo Bernardo Ferreira Vaz, Universidad Federal de minas Gerais, (Belo Horizonte), Brésil, Communication Sociale.
  • Alec G Hargreaves, Florida State University (Tallahassee), Director Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, Etats-Unis, Littérature française et études francophones.
  • Pierre-Cyrille Hautcœur, EHESS, École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), France, Sciences Economiques.
  • Jérôme Jamin, Université de Liège, Belgique, Sciences politiques.
  • Gerd Krumeich, Université de Düsseldorf, Allemagne, Histoire.
  • Stéphane Michonneau, Université de Lille, France, Histoire.
  • Ellen McCracken, UCSB, (University of California Santa Barbara), Etats-Unis, Littérature et etudes culturelles latino-américaines.
  • Mónica Moreno Seco, Universidad de Alicante, Espagne, Histoire.
  • Edilma Osorio Pérez Flor, Facultad de Estudios Ambientales y Rurales, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombie, Sociologie, Anthropologie.
  • Maitane Ostolaza, Université Paris Sorbonne, France, Civilisation espagnole.
  • Manuelle Peloille, Université d’Angers, France, Civilisation espagnole.
  • Alejandro M. Rabinovich, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones
    Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Universidad Nacional de La Pampa (UNLPam), Argentine, Histoire.
  • Mario Ranalletti, Instituto de estudios históricos, Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Argentine, Histoire.
  • Jean-Robert Raviot, Université de Nanterre (Paris X), France, Civilisation russe.
  • Philippe Schaffhauser, Centro de Estudios Rurales. Colegio de Michoacán, Mexique, Sociologie et anthropologie sociale et culturelle.
  • Pierre Schoentjes, Université de Gand, Belgique, Littérature française.
  • Leonard V. Smith, Oberlin College (Ohio), Etats-Unis, Histoire.
  • Taline Ter Minassian, INALCO, (Paris), France, Histoire.
  • Dominic Thomas, UCLA, (University of California Los Angeles), Etats-Unis, études culturelles et politiques des mondes francophones.
  • Amarela Varela Huerta, Academia de Comunicación y Cultura, Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, Mexique, Sociologie.
  • Luis Veres, Universidad de Valencia, Espagne, Littérature latino-américaine.

Date(s)

  • Saturday, December 20, 2025

Keywords

  • police sanitaire, épidémie, contrôle social, santé publique

Contact(s)

  • Severiano Rojo Hernandez
    courriel : severiano [dot] rojohernandez [at] univ-amu [dot] fr

Reference Urls

Information source

  • Severiano Rojo Hernandez
    courriel : severiano [dot] rojohernandez [at] univ-amu [dot] fr

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« Social Control and Health Issues: The Role of «Sanitary Policing» », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Monday, November 03, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/1534d

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