Decolonizing Global Health and the Role of Critical Qualitative Research

This panel was co-hosted by the Centre for Global Health and the Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research.

Scholars, healthcare professionals, activists and others have advocated for "decolonizing" global health, which involves working to redress power imbalances in the field that originated in colonialism. It requires a knowledge, leadership and paradigm shift. This panel will explore approaches relating to the decolonization of global health. Specifically, it will discuss how critical qualitative research methods and the practice of reflexivity can meaningfully contribute towards a decolonization process. The event will begin with a 10 minute presentation from each of our panelists on their thesis topics, reflecting on how their theoretical and methodological approach contributes to efforts to decolonize global health. There will then be a moderated discussion further exploring the role of critical qualitative research and decolonizing global health, followed by an open Q&A session.

Speakers:
Dr. Jannah Wigle recently defended her PhD in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences, and was a student in the collaborative specialization in global health at the University of Toronto. Her doctoral research used a focused critical qualitative ethnographic approach to explore youth participation in sexual and reproductive health policymaking in Malawi. Jannah recently joined the Applied Health Research Centre at St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto as a Clinical Research Specialist on the qualitative research team.

Dr. Victoria Blackwell-Hardie is a mental health scientist-practitioner with primary interests in the areas of global health, qualitative research, cultural psychiatry, and critical and political-economic approaches to understanding mental illness and wellbeing. A recent graduate of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Dr. Blackwell-Hardie’s doctoral work explored the manifestation and construction of everyday mental distress for women living in Eldoret, Western Kenya, alongside the major social determinants of Eldoret women’s mental health problems, and the local needs and assets related to mental health. Dr. Blackwell-Hardie is driven by her passion for social justice, advancing women’s rights and opportunities, and critically analyzing modern medicine’s narratives of women’s health problems.

Dr. Mariana Duarte completed her PhD in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Prior to her doctoral studies, Mariana worked for community-based initiatives, academic institutions, and non-governmental organizations in Sao Paulo, Brazil where she facilitated diverse community-based, participatory planning processes and developed successful outreach campaigns and partnerships with the public sector and community grassroots. As a community development practitioner, she had the opportunity to work with community health workers, grassroots groups, and social justice movements in Sao Paulo. By knowing and working with collectives that focused on popular education and social change, she developed genuine respect and appreciation for lay knowledge and how lay perceptions, practices, and strategies can contribute to tackling complex inequities.

Discussants:
Ifrah Abdilahi is a PhD candidate in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto
Bernice Yanful is a PhD candidate in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto

About the organizers:
The Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research (CQ) is a teaching and research unit based at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. CQ is an intellectual ‘home’ and resource for critical qualitative researchers in the health research community at the university and its affiliated research institutes, as well as a network of students and scholars in applied and academic research settings across Canada and internationally.

The Centre for Global Health is the knowledge hub of global health educational activities at DLSPH and views global health in an integrative manner. The Centre for Global Health offers multidisciplinary graduate education in global health, student practicum placements, seminars, lectures, and other training and career opportunities. It partners with research institutions around the world, to host visiting scholars (graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty, and other researchers) and support student and faculty research at the DLSPH.