The research article " Decolonising humanitarian health: A scoping review of practical guidance" was published in the journal PLOS Global Public Health, and can be accessed here
Despite growing calls and efforts to decolonise global and humanitarian health, there is limited practical guidance for researchers, educators and practitioners on how to do so. This paper fills this gap by offering a narrative exploration of key recommendations on decolonising global/humanitarian health research, partnerships, teaching, organisational structures and other practices. We present concrete guidelines to support humanitarian actors in decolonising their work.
Within this research, we identified five key themes:
- organisational structure,
- strategy and engagement;
- research partnerships and conceptualisations;
- funding for research and projects; the research lifecycle; and
- teaching and the curriculum.
The principal finding is that humanitarian actors can decolonise their work by decentralising power, redistributing resources, critically reflecting on their work in the context of the broader socio-polwtical landscape and recovering, centring and valuing marginalised Global South perspectives. Future research should reflect on practical steps towards racial justice in global/humanitarian health and be focused on ensuring that efforts towards “localisation” or “equitable partnerships” in global health are linked to decolonisation efforts, including in humanitarian health research. Our review underscores the importance of drawing on knowledge created by and for actors based in the Global South.