Iraq experienced one of the most comprehensive sanctions regimes ever imposed on a country in the 20th century. Dr. Omar Dewachi explores the concept of medical anthropology and traces the history of the Iraqi healthcare system from the British mandate to the post-2003 era. This exploration highlights how political interventions and conflicts disrupted medical infrastructure and population health. Ultimately, the conversation examines the profound breakdown of the political, medical, and social systems that led to the death of the clinic and a collapse of trust.
Iraq experienced one of the most comprehensive sanctions regimes ever imposed on a country in the 20th century. Dr. Omar Dewachi explores the concept of medical anthropology and traces the history of the Iraqi healthcare system from the British mandate to the post-2003 era. This exploration highlights how political interventions and conflicts disrupted medical infrastructure and population health. Ultimately, the conversation examines the profound breakdown of the political, medical, and social systems that led to the death of the clinic and a collapse of trust.
00:00 Introduction
01:21 The Concept of Medical Anthropology
04:52 Dual Trajectories in Health and Social Contexts
06:31 A Career Shift Rooted in Wartime Experience
10:19 The True Toll of the Comprehensive Sanctions Regime
12:56 Infrastructure and the Early Construction of the State
17:53 Systemic Vulnerabilities and the Scales of Destruction
22:25 Healthcare Expansion as an Instrument of Statecraft
28:21 The Rhetoric of Progress and the Framing of Pathologies
31:47 Moving Beyond Conventional Battlefields
37:13 Bearing Witness to Systemic Ruination and Personal Loss
43:09 Challenging Michel Foucault's Framework
49:44 Unequal Knowledge and Visibility on the Global Stage
51:57 The Erosion of Sacred Alliances and the Shift to Commerce
53:41 The Geography of Regional Wounds
Omar Dewachi is an Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology and Global Health at Rutgers University. His work examines the social, medical, and environmental fallouts of decades of war and violence in Iraq and the broader Middle East. Before joining Rutgers in 2018, Dewachi co-founded the Conflict Medicine Program at the American University of Beirut, where he taught social medicine and global health. His award-winning book Ungovernable Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq (Stanford University Press, 2017) documents the untold history of the rise and fall of Iraq's healthcare system under decades of US-led interventions. His ongoing project 'When Wounds Travel' weaves almost two decades of ethnographic research with his personal experience of displacement and his medical and public health practice across Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. He holds an MD from Baghdad University, an MPH from the American University of Beirut, and a PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University.
Connect with Omar Dewachi 👉 https://instagram.com/omar_dewachi