The failure of colonial ‘distancing’: Changing representations of the 2005–06 chikungunya epidemic in Réunion, France Philip Weinstein and Srilata Ravi School of Humanities, University of Western Australia, Crawley Western Australia Correspondence: Philip Weinstein (email: Philip.Weinstein@uwa.edu.au) In 2005–06, the Indian Ocean island of Réunion, an overseas department of France, experienced a massive epidemic of the mosquito-borne viral infection chikungunya. Public health authorities in metropolitan France were arguably slow to react, and we explore their representations and management of the epidemic in the context of tropicality and colonial discourse. We analyse official reports on the epidemic from the bulletins of the Institut de Veillance Sanitaire (Institute for Health Surveillance) for changes in representations of risk posed by chikungunya to metropolitan France, in the emphasis on control measures for the epidemic and in descriptions of chikungunya case symptomatologies, and compare these with parallel representations of another epidemic, flu, already known in metropolitan France. Our findings illustrate that official responses to chikungu- nya at the beginning of the epidemic are suggestive of a centred tropicality: there is no perceived risk to metropolitan France because of its nontropical climate; thus, there is no justification for costly control measures for a disease inevitable in the tropics; and therefore the symptoms of French nationals in overseas departments in the tropics can be described in detached terms so as to generate knowledge about the disease. However, this ‘distancing’ fails with the perceived risk to metropolitan France towards the end of the epidemic in late 2006, when representations are more consistent with a decentred tropicality: the concept of a protective metropolitan French climate is abandoned; the need for a whole-of-society involvement in control measures is accepted; and symptoms are described using more inclusive language. Similar changes are not found in official reports on the flu epidemic. Keywords: chikungunya, colonialism, distancing, epidemic, Réunion, tropicality Introduction In April 2005, the Indian Ocean island of Réunion, an overseas department of France, saw the first cases of what became a massive epidemic of the mosquito-borne viral infection chikungunya. Over the subsequent 18 months, more than 250,000 people – one-third of the island’s population – suffered the symptomatic high fever, rash and debilitating joint pains. Yet the public health authorities in metropolitan France were arguably slow to take the epidemic seriously. Drawing on discourses on tropicality, we explore the attitudes underlying this metropolitan response by examining represen- tations of the disease in official reports on the epidemic. Our findings suggest that tropicalism and colonial ‘distancing’ continue to influence centralized and metropolitan-directed public health policy and practice in France’s overseas depart- ments, with appropriate and inclusive measures being taken only when an epidemic is was perceived as posing a threat to metropolitan France. Tropicality is a western discourse that ‘exalts the temperate world over its tropical counterpart’ (Bowd & Clayton, 2005: 297). It has clear overlaps and synergies with colonialism and orientalism, parallel discourses that provide what McLeod (2000: 37) succinctly summarizes as a justification for ‘the possession and continuing occupation of other people’s lands’. Tropicality continues to support western temperate countries’ doi:10.1111/j.1467-9493.2008.00330.x Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 29 (2008) 221–235 © 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd