Hygiene narratives as public health discourse: Constructing the national body and national identity in wartime China (New China Daily & Liberation Daily, 1937–1945)

During the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-1945), China faced severe public health crises amid military and political upheaval, making hygiene and epidemic prevention critical to safeguarding public health and national survival. While the Communist Party of China (CPC) newspapers' role in wartime political culture is recognized, systematic research on how their hygiene discourse shaped national identity is scarce. This study adopted qualitative discourse analysis of 586 hygiene-related reports from New China Daily (1937-1941) and Liberation Daily (1941-1945), sourced from databases such as the National Newspaper Index, to explore their identity-construction mechanisms. It found that the newspapers adopted three interrelated strategies: popularizing scientific hygiene knowledge to reshape public perceptions, politicizing health campaigns to turn private practices into patriotic obligations, and embedding hygiene into daily life via education and institutions to consolidate collective consciousness. These narratives not only mobilized public support for the war but also localized Foucault's biopolitics and Douglas's purity and danger theory, redefining hygiene as a patriotic duty and collective resistance, illustrating how public health discourse shapes collective identity and drives public health practice in crises and broadening Western theories' applicability in the Chinese context.