decolonization
January 27, 2024
Tim Schwab & “The Bill Gates Problem” Town Hall Seattle Podcast
Tim Schwab, author of the recently published “The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the myth of the good billionaire,” headlined a Seattle Town Hall event in December 2024 sponsored by the Community Alliance for Global Justice. In this podcast of the event, Tim explains how Bill Gates’ uses his foundation as a vehicle for unaccountable…
October 20, 2023
Israel weaponizes healthcare in Gaza
Israel crushed Gaza’s medical system and prevents thousands of Palestinians from leaving for treatment. The Fourth Geneva Convention holds that an occupying power must ensure the food and medical supplies of the population and must allow medical workers to carry out their duties (Articles 55 and 56). But “Israel’s closure and blockade have turned the…
October 16, 2023
Gaza: The Past Nine Days for Me
Rahmeh is a Palestinian-Jordanian living in Amman, and was our MPH Graduation speaker in 2022 The past nine days have been an excruciating journey through time, immersing me in the anguish and fury of my ancestors who lived the Nakba [catastrophe]. They served as a potent reminder of my childhood, prompting a fundamental…
October 6, 2023
Could you patent the sun? How vaccine patent waivers would save lives
The world had the chance to truly treat COVID-19 as a common problem and respond to it in an equitable and just manner. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, politicians, mainstream media and celebrities in the West declaring the disease the “great equalizer” – implying that this novel virus would affect everyone regardless of their position, wealth,…
September 19, 2023
Hollow Promises and True Adversaries
Decolonization in global health has gained popularity as a trendy topic, but the language of equity and justice falls short when it comes to practice. Richard Horton’s “Offline: The case for global health” (Lancet, May 2023) pushes us to struggle against deeper issues in our field, including power and money imbalances, unearned privileges, racism, and…
September 2, 2023
Fossil Fuel Shackles: How Wealthy Nations Hook Developing Ones
Introduction In the realm of global environmental justice, a disconcerting phenomenon has gained prominence in recent times: the entrapment of impoverished nations by their wealthier counterparts into a relentless dependence on fossil fuels. (1) This practice, though obscured by economic negotiations, perpetuates a cycle of environmental degradation and inequality. By examining pertinent examples and evidence,…
August 11, 2023
Are we training students to be white saviors in global health?
Ananya Tina Banerjee and co-authors just published an excellent piece in The Lancet on white saviorism in global health. They remind us that global health leadership and power continues to be dominated by the global north – and that 85% of all global health organizations are headquartered in Europe and North America. They point out…
May 17, 2023
[VIDEO] Madhu Pai Lecture on Global Health Decolonization
It is now fashionable to talk about decolonization in global health, but the landscape of global health continues to be dominated by those with power and privilege. Many who espouse decolonialization make little effort to transform the power and dominance from the global north that pervades global health activities. Madhu Pai has written and spoken…
September 13, 2022
[BOOKS] on Decolonization
Here are book recommendations on decolonizing the global health space: “Wretched of the Earth” by Frantz Fanon (1961) Fanon’s seminal work on decolonization explores the psychological and sociopolitical effects of colonialism, offering critical insights into the process of liberation and self-determination. “The Colonizer and the Colonized” by Albert Memmi (1957) Memmi’s analysis delves into…
