[Side Effects of Modernity : Dam Building, Health Care, and the Construction of Power in the Context of the Control of Schistosomiasis in Egypt in the 1960s and early 1970s].

This article analyzes the modernization campaigns in Egypt in the 1960s and early 1970s. The regulation of the Nile by the Aswan High Dam and the resulting irrigation projects caused the rate of schistosomiasis infestation in the population to rise. The result was a discourse between experts from the global north and Egyptian elites about modernization, development aid, dam building and health care. The fight against schistosomiasis was like a cipher, which combined different power-laden concepts and arguments. This article will decode the cipher and allow a deeper look into the contemporary dimensions of power bound to this subject. The text is conceived around three thematic axes. The first deals with the discursive interplay of modernization, health and development aid in and for Egypt. The second focuses on far-reaching and long-standing arguments within an international expert discourse about these concepts. Finally, the third presents an exemplary case study of West German health and development aid for fighting schistosomiasis in the Egyptian Fayoum oasis.