The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on existing systemic inequities, both in terms of health inequity and broader socio-economic inequities.1 There have been calls globally not just to build back better but to do so in a way that dismantles structural inequities.2 Abimbola et al3 have outlined facets of supremacy, encompassing coloniality, patriarchy, racism, white supremacy and saviourism, that together maintain power asymmetries and privilege within global health. The push-back against these inequities is perhaps most visible in the many calls to ‘decolonise global health’.4–7 While there is currently no unified definition of what it would mean to decolonise global health, in its broadest sense it has been described as the ‘imperative of problematising coloniality’.8 Over the past 18 months, ‘decolonising global health’ has gained pace as a collection of activist movements that seek to transition from the theoretical to the practical. While differing in approach9–11 they are unified by the impetus to actively deconstruct ingrained systems of power and privilege that continue to prioritise the perspectives of those from former colonial powers, persistently marginalising those with lived experience and hampering the attainment of health equity…more
Dialogical reflexivity towards collective action to transform global health
