“Global health” is a vague and easily dismissed concept. It’s difficult for most people to wrap their minds around what “global” really means, even when they spend a long time wrestling with its vastness, its implications, and its complexities. When “health” is added to the mix, it’s an almost insurmountable effort to begin to understand, and thus far too easy to reach for a technology to help explain it, typify it, summarize it, and put it into words that resonate.
The good people at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health have requested our agreement with a definition so that we can get on with doing what needs to be done: they say we need to 1) reach agreement on what [global health] is, so that 2) we can agree on “…what we are trying to achieve, the approaches we must take, the skills that are needed, and the ways that we should use resources” (Koplan et al., 2009, p. 1993).” No doubt, these are some of the best people to recommend a definition because they are medical professionals, and they are (mostly) a diverse bunch (let’s not look at the CUGH Executive Board’s North American makeup for fear it might undermine the process). And no doubt, we must begin somewhere… if not with a definition, then with what alternative?
But, in putting forward a definition of the term “global health”, we – or perhaps more-so, they – as definers, naturally influence its meaning. This is not deleterious in and of itself, but we must recognize that our perspective is but one perspective that needs to “recognize [its] place … and the place of others and of other things…” (Wagamese, 2013). We ought not to ossify this definition, but foster synovial adjustments that take into account the experiences and expertise of those that offer their oblique, lived perspectives.
A useful analogy is found through the inspection of a cross section of tissue from a mammalian organ. Looking from afar, it is fairly easy to pick out the vessel that carries some kind of fluid to and fro. But zooming closer (thanks to the technology that enables this inspection), it becomes more difficult to discern structures. At maximum magnification, what becomes clear is that the organ is composed of a multitude of cells and connections – a diverse spectrum – that, as a combined whole, create the definition of a functional structure.
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The notion that we, as a species, are somehow separate and special, and are deserving of a disarticulated existence from our biosphere, is rooted in the historical wrongs of conquest, religion, and humans’ natural tendency to stratify based on perceived capability (ETEC 511 course module 5 – Global Health; Boys, 2022). History has demonstrated our intolerance for “misfitting”, despite our diametrically opposed capacity to learn from our mistakes (Boys, 2022), and unfortunately, much of the way we choose to adopt technology appears to reinforce the social structures that perpetuate the dominant culture’s normative political and social perspectives (Crawford, 2021). Education may have been capable of addressing and potentially correcting these “artificial realities”, but it has failed to compel us towards true connectedness in the battle against capitalism and the allure of individuality (Crawford, 2021). As if adding salt to the wound, the COVID pandemic demonstrated the irony of the situation by juxtaposing the benefits of “virtualized learning” to help us connect to our learning environments, with the reality of our isolation (Burgess & Sievertsen, 2020; Mazur, 2012).
Education, like other societal structures, is, at least in part, designed to filter, exclude, or separate those who do not conform to the normative behaviour or capabilities expected of them (Boys, 2022). But what if, instead of venerating exceptional intelligence and sociopathic tendencies to achieve, we asked individuals more capable than others to use their gifts to lift those who could benefit from additional assistance? Rather than allowing unfettered, individual, localized accumulation of wealth and power, what if we asked for attenuation and consideration for the whole, the way we had to think about the entire tribe when searching for berries or running from sabre-toothed cats? No doubt it is important to retain some aspects of the incentivization afforded by “the pursuit of the X dream”, but in its current manifestation, people’s embodiment of capitalistic behaviours are more akin to a cancer on society than a homeostatic organelle of the whole.
Our species’ ability to reflect and readjust, along with the actions of individuals who unceremoniously and unwaveringly carry-out connecting, community-building endeavours, provide glimmers of hope for our collective future. In the car today I pledged to my twelve-year-old daughter that I would nominate her senior Girl Guide leader for some kind of community award, because I want to do my part to acknowledge my recognition of her outstanding efforts in educating, demonstrating, and building community. If we can re-acquire focus on the true purpose of education – an education that nurtures a healthy body, mind, and soul – and use the thoughtful application of technology to further this endeavour, we will be on our way to to understanding “what Mbembé calls ‘a different politics of inhabiting the Earth…'” (Crawford, 2019, p. 227), and charting a better course for ourselves beyond the content of our existing patterns (Benjamin, 2019; Crawford, 2021).
References
Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new Jim Code. Polity Press.
Bennett, P. W. (2020, July 20). The educational experience has been substandard for students during COVID-19. Policy Options. https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2020/07/the-educational-experience-has-been-substandard-for-students-during-covid-19/
Boys, J. (2022). Exploring inequalities in the social, spatial and material practices of teaching and learning in pandemic times. Postdigital Science and Education, 4, 13–32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-021-00267-z
Burgess, S., & Sievertsen, H. H. (2020, April 1). Schools, skills, and learning: The impact of COVID-19 on education. VoxEU. https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/schools-skills-and-learning-impact-covid-19-education
Crawford, K. (2021). Bibliography. In Atlas of AI (pp. 269–314). Yale University Press. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.12987/9780300252392-012/html
Koplan, J. P., Bond, T. C., Merson, M. H., Reddy, K. S., Rodriguez, M. H., Sewankambo, N. K., Wasserheit, J. N., & Consortium of Universities for Global Health Executive Board. (2009). Towards a common definition of global health. The Lancet, 373(9679), 1993–1995.
Mazur, E. (2012). Why you can pass tests and still fail in the real world [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3X0I9W_c34
The connected learning research network: Reflections on a decade of engaged scholarship. (2020, February 23). Connected Learning Alliance. https://clalliance.org/publications/the-connected-learning-research-network-reflections-on-a-decade-of-engaged-scholarship/
Wagamese, R. (2013). All my relations: About respect. Kamloops Daily News. https://kamloopsnews.ca/kdn-opinion-columnists/wagamese-all-my-relations-about-respect/
