In the past decade, the global health community has recognized and increasingly challenged unfair knowledge practices to address epistemic injustice within the field. Bhakuni and Abimbola frame epistemic injustice as “pervasive wrongs related to knowledge production, use, and circulation in global health.” Structural barriers within academic publishing have resulted in perpetuating harmful power hierarchies in […]
Traditionally, the academic community has prioritized the academic value of research over its social impact and relevance. About a decade ago, a study estimated that up to 85% of biomedical research was avoidably wasted. This study highlighted that a key factor contributing to research waste was the limited utility and relevance of research for interest-holders, […]
Abstract Reflexivity is often framed in qualitative research as a means of enhancing methodological rigour and research quality. However, less attention has been paid to whether research that meets such standards is also ethically responsive to the needs of participants and communities. In this paper, I examine the role of reflexivity in advancing ethical research […]
In recent years, positionality/reflexivity statements have become increasingly common in global health, qualitative health research, and bioethics. Often framed as practices of reflexivity, recently they are also taken up as part of decolonial projects. Yet their growing prevalence invites a critical pause. I argue that thin positionality statements can function less as transformative practices and […]
Abstract Scientists have begun using AI agents in tasks such as reviewing the published literature, formulating hypotheses and subjecting them to virtual tests, modeling complex phenomena, and conducting experiments. Although AI agents are likely to enhance the productivity and efficiency of scientific inquiry, their deployment also creates risks for the research enterprise and society, including […]
Abstract This article explores how feminist ethics of care can inform and transform participatory design (PD) facilitation in urban planning. Drawing on two European case studies – InclusiveCity and Cities in Placemaking – the research examines how care-centred approaches challenge technocratic and transactional PD practices. Through an abductive process combining theory and empirical analysis, the […]
Abstract Current approaches to health system resilience tend to prioritize system-level outcomes (e.g. functionality) while overlooking key underlying social processes, contexts, and power-laden interactions through which resilience is produced. When community resilience is subsumed under health system resilience, without attending to distinct contextual factors, it can lead to fragmented approaches or maladaptive outcomes that misalign […]
Abstract This paper promotes reflexive consideration of health research practices using a decolonisation lens. We propose both incremental and more radical action in five domains: knowledge production, funding and programmes, dissemination, uptake, and education and training. We suggest four steps towards transformation and share a reflexive tool to operationalise these steps. Tagoe N, Abimbola S, […]
Madeleine Pownall and Sebastian Cordoba make the case for reflexivity and positionality statements as important in all kinds of research. Positionality statements are increasingly mandated by some journals and publishers. These statements accompany empirical work and invite authors to articulate their social, identity, methodological, and epistemological locations, to provide much-needed context (or “position”) for their […]
Research in global health must expand its scope beyond English language publishing to ensure inclusivity, writes Abdourahmane Ndong. Each time I engage with global health research I am reminded of how many studies never reach the global spotlight or appear in indexed databases because of the language they are written in or the journal in which […]