The Rhetoric of Decolonizing Global Health Fails to Address the Reality of Settler Colonialism: Gaza as a Case in Point

Document Type : Editorial

Authors

Sustainable Health Unit, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Abstract

This editorial critiques the existing literature on decolonizing global health, using the current assault on health in Gaza as a case in point. It argues that the failure to address the ongoing violence and blatant targeting of health facilities, personnel and innocent civilians demonstrates most clearly the limitations of an approach that is strong on rhetoric and weak on mounting a forthright challenge to the entire system supporting and perpetuating settler colonialism. We propose a more radical rethinking of the position of global health institutions within the current neoliberal system and of the systems of knowledge production that continue to underpin the existing colonial approach to the health of victims of settler colonialism.

Highlights

 

Commentaries Published on this Paper

 

  • Countering Coloniality in Global Health; Comment on “The Rhetoric of Decolonizing Global Health Fails to Address the Reality of Settler Colonialism: Gaza as a Case in Point”

        Abstract PDF

 

  • Confronting the Colonial Roots of Global Health Inequities in Gaza; Comment on “The Rhetoric of Decolonizing Global Health Fails to Address the Reality of Settler Colonialism: Gaza as a Case in Point”

        Abstract PDF

 

  • Centering Local Knowledge to Address the Imbrication of Settler Colonialism and Global Health; Comment on “The Rhetoric of Decolonizing Global Health Fails to Address the Reality of Settler Colonialism: Gaza as a Case in Point”

        Abstract PDF

 

  • Palestine Is Freeing Us All Before Palestine Is Free; Comment on “The Rhetoric of Decolonizing Global Health Fails to Address the Reality of Settler Colonialism: Gaza as a Case in Point”

        Abstract PDF

 

  • Depoliticization, Colonialism, and the Imperative to Disrupt Denial; Comment on “The Rhetoric of Decolonizing Global Health Fails to Address the Reality of Settler Colonialism: Gaza as a Case in Point”

        Abstract PDF

 

Keywords


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