Decolonizing Global Health Promotion: A Quest for Equity

Rashmi Singla, Johanne Andersen Elbek, Lene Maj Hjortsø Fernando

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Abstract

Abstract
Colonial legacies are apparent under the current neoliberal paradigm, which leads to global inequity, also in the field of global health. This chapter presents the need to decolonize the field of global health in the quest for health equity and highlights four essential levels in the decolonization process: knowledge, leadership, policy, and praxis.
Through critically engaging with historical premises and the contemporary challenges of global health, this chapter explores previous, current, and future development within the realm of global health and discusses decolonizing strategies in order to challenge the structures that sustain a systemic suppression of Global South voices.
With a point of departure in the Global North, we argue for the importance of involving all voices at all levels within the field of global health, including both sides of the human encounters between health professionals and local populations. The chapter engages with colonial legacies and assesses current societal structures through a postcolonial lens in order to suggest the necessary transformations towards social justice within decolonial frameworks.
Colonial medicine forms the backdrop for discussing the current dynamics related to human encounters in promoting health globally, while the frictions and paradoxes faced by mobile health professionals, racial hierarchies, and power inequalities are covered within the theoretical framework of postcolonialism. Finally, the chapter reflects on practical decolonising approaches to achieve equity and social justice with broad recommendations for future work in global health.


Short, initial abstract

Contemporary interventions undertaken in the name of promoting global health represent enduring challenges and new trends relating to international efforts to improve health conditions, primarily in the global south. This chapter aims to cover both sides in the encounter, emphasising ethno- racial representations and the burden of ‘otherness’ because the intervention power dynamics influence both the agents of intervention and the targets. There is a broad perspective on historical continuity as well as ruptures: from legacies of mistrust in colonial medicine, postcolonial approaches, integration of the local, traditional health practices into the ‘current ‘ ones, to motives of mobile professionals
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TitelTransdisciplinary Thinking from the Global South: Whose problems, whose solutions?
RedaktørerJuan Carlos Finck Carrales, Julia Suárez-Krabbe
Antal sider22
ForlagRoutledge
Publikationsdato2022
Sider55-76
Kapitel3
ISBN (Trykt)9781032000350
ISBN (Elektronisk)9781003172413
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2022
NavnRoutledge research on Decoloniality and New Postcolonialisms

Emneord

  • global health
  • racial hierarchies, power inequalities
  • social justice, inequity
  • otherness/othering
  • postcolonial
  • global health promotion
  • colonial legacies
  • health promotion interventions,
  • development,
  • equity,
  • decolonization

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