Philip J. Havik

Philip J. Havik (PhD Social Sciences, Leiden University, The Netherlands) is currently senior researcher at the Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical (IHMT) of the Universidade NOVA in Lisbon, while also teaching at the same institution. He previously worked as a research fellow at the Research School for African, Asian and Amerindian Studies (University of Leiden, The Netherlands) and at the Instituto de Investigação Cientifica Tropical (IICT) in Lisbon, amongst others as a post-doctoral researcher and research assistant in the Programa Ciência 2008 funded by the Fundação de Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT). He obtained various research grants from the FCT FCT), the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the European Commission. He also sat on PhD and MA exam committees in Portugal and other EU countries as well as Brazil.

He has taught colonial and post-colonial anthropology at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Universidade NOVA in Lisbon (FCSH-UNL), and currently lectures Anthropology of Health in the PhD Programme of International Health (DSI) at IHMT, as well as the History of Tropical Medicine, in collaboration with the Faculty of Science and Technology of the Universidade NOVA (FCT-UNL) and FioCruz (Brazil).

He is a Research Fellow at the African Studies Centre of the University of Leiden (The Netherlands) and an associate researcher of the Instituto de História Contemporânea (IHC) of the FCSH-UNL. He also serves as review-editor of the discussion network H-LusoAfrica (H-Net, Humanities and Social Sciences Online) and sits on the advisory boards of several peer reviewed journals, including Medical History.

He has authored/co-authored over 80 publications, including 34 peer reviewed articles and 37 book chapters, as well as 7 books.

His multidisciplinary research centers upon the study of global health and tropical medicine, health systems, anthropology of health, history of tropical medicine, and indigenous medicine and integrative medicine, as well as colonial and post-colonial governance and the development of ecosystems, in sub-Saharan Africa, with special emphasis on Lusophone countries in particular. Currently, his research focuses on the longitudinal analysis of health systems and epidemiological control programmes, and their outcomes against the background of the broader international and regional cooperation in health in the African region. He also studies the knowledge, atitudes and practices associated with social medicine and primary health care in Lusophone countries and in Portugal. In addition, his research engages with the medical flora and healing traditions in sub-Saharan Africa, besides focusing on ecosystems, agriculture and economic development in Lusophone countries, and Guinea-Bissau in particular.

He has collaborated with research teams in several competitively funded projects, including ‘The Invisibility of death in immigrant populations in Portugal’ (PTDC/CS-ANT/102862/2008), ‘Empires, Centres and Provinces: the circulation of medical knowledge’ (PTDC/HCT/72143/2006), and more recently as PI of the project ‘Tropical Modernity, Public Health and Endemic Disease Control: the combat against malaria, sleeping sickness and syphilis in former Portuguese Africa (1920-1975)’ , (IF/01130/2013/CP1165/CT0002), all funded by the FCT,

He is currently researcher in the project “The worlds of (under)development: processes and legacies of the Portuguese colonial empire in a comparative perspective (1945-1975)” co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the FCT (PTDC/HAR-HIS/31906/2017 – POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031906).

1. Catarino L., Havik P. & Romeiras M.M. 2016. Medicinal plants of Guinea-Bissau: therapeutic applications, ethnic diversity and knowledge transfer. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 183:71-94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2016.02.032
2. Philip J. Havik. 2018. Public Health, Social Medicine and Disease Control: Medical Services, Maternal Care and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Former Portuguese West Africa (1920–63). Medical History, 62 (4): 485–506. http://10.1017/mdh.2018.44
3. Philip J. Havik, Filipa Monteiro, Silvia Catarino, Luís Catarino and Maria M. Romeiras. 2018. Agro-economic transitions in Guinea-Bissau (West Africa): historical trends and current insights. Sustainability 10, 10, 3408. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10103408
4. Maria M. Romeiras, Maria Cristina Duarte, Javier Francisco-Ortega, Luís Catarino and Philip J. Havik. 2018. Recovering plant data for Guinea-Bissau: implications for biodiversity knowledge of West Africa. Diversity, 10, 109. https://doi.org/10.3390/d10040109
5. Philip J. Havik. 2014. Public Health and Tropical Modernity: the combat against sleeping sickness in Portuguese Guinea (1945-1974). Manguinhos: história, ciências, saúde, 21, 2: 641-666.