{"id":3387,"date":"2022-07-19T10:00:06","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T09:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=3387"},"modified":"2022-06-23T09:40:58","modified_gmt":"2022-06-23T08:40:58","slug":"decolonising-man-resituating-pandemic-an-intervention-in-the-pathogenesis-of-colonial-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2022\/07\/19\/decolonising-man-resituating-pandemic-an-intervention-in-the-pathogenesis-of-colonial-capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Decolonising \u2018Man\u2019, Resituating Pandemic: An Intervention in the Pathogenesis of Colonial Capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Article Summary by Rosemary J Jolly<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I use the Humanities to expose how we conceive of the human as a construction that can be changed. I counter Enlightenment Man, the basic \u2018unit\u2019 of Western medicine, with the African humanism of Es\u2019kia Mphahlele. Mpahlele describes humans as needing to live with, rather than exploiting, non-human animals and humans that are considered less-than-human. This \u201cliving with\u201d is illustrated by a South African HIV\/AIDS novel called <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0722\/2871\/products\/13113760_1076278085769649_639636771_n_2048x2048.jpg?v=1549071070\">The Reactive, written by Masande Ntshanga<\/a><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>What does decolonization have to do with concepts of the human and pandemics?\u00a0 The idea of the Western Human sees humans as commanding their environment. This Human considers land acquisition and slave or cheap labour to develop it, crucial. Colonial capitalism increases the interface between human and non-human, wild animals in contexts in which the gaps between rich and poor are vast: A context that drives pandemic ecologies. The idea that the poor can \u2018catch up\u2019 with the wealthy is a fiction, too: we would need, for example, 5.1 more worlds in everyone lived like the average American citizen. None of this is sustainable. The way we live is itself the sickness.<\/p>\n<p>While there has been heaps of discussion about decolonizing Global health, very few have described what this looks like in the clinical encounter. The techniques I propose move that encounter away from resembling a confessional, in which the patient is constantly obliged to \u2018own up\u2019 to poor living conditions that are the result of colonial capitalist violence that they can do nothing about. I show how flows of information can be reversed from global South to global North.\u00a0 This can only happen if the North develops a listening skill that is also a form of waiting-with communities in need; that is, a waiting-with that includes western-trained healers listening, as in <em>learning from, <\/em>communities that fall outside the norms of the Western Human.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3389\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2022\/06\/Rosemary-J-Jolly-Decolonising-\u2018Man-Resituating-Pandemic-An-Intervention-in-the-Pathogenesis-of-Colonial-Capitalism_1-225x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Rosemary J Jolly\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2022\/06\/Rosemary-J-Jolly-Decolonising-\u2018Man-Resituating-Pandemic-An-Intervention-in-the-Pathogenesis-of-Colonial-Capitalism_1-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2022\/06\/Rosemary-J-Jolly-Decolonising-\u2018Man-Resituating-Pandemic-An-Intervention-in-the-Pathogenesis-of-Colonial-Capitalism_1-768x1022.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2022\/06\/Rosemary-J-Jolly-Decolonising-\u2018Man-Resituating-Pandemic-An-Intervention-in-the-Pathogenesis-of-Colonial-Capitalism_1-1154x1536.jpeg 1154w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2022\/06\/Rosemary-J-Jolly-Decolonising-\u2018Man-Resituating-Pandemic-An-Intervention-in-the-Pathogenesis-of-Colonial-Capitalism_1-1539x2048.jpeg 1539w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2022\/06\/Rosemary-J-Jolly-Decolonising-\u2018Man-Resituating-Pandemic-An-Intervention-in-the-Pathogenesis-of-Colonial-Capitalism_1-640x852.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2022\/06\/Rosemary-J-Jolly-Decolonising-\u2018Man-Resituating-Pandemic-An-Intervention-in-the-Pathogenesis-of-Colonial-Capitalism_1-scaled.jpeg 1923w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/>If you want to see where some folks in the seventies donated a piece of heart transplant equipment to that couldn\u2019t be used \u2013 and where I lived for three years as a kid \u2013 take a look at <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StJamesMissionHospital\/photos\/a.214781825327383\/219055041566728\/\">this photo of the St James Mission Hospital<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The flat area in front of the hospital is the airstrip. In the forefront are the huts that used to be used for pregnant mothers who lived so far away they came to live in those huts communally for the last weeks of pregnancy. One baby did \u2018land\u2019 on the airstrip when his mother left crossing it to get to the hospital for the last moment.\u00a0 He was named Sefofane (Sotho): Aeroplane!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>Read the full article on the <a href=\"https:\/\/mh.bmj.com\/content\/48\/2\/221\"><em><strong>Medical Humanities<\/strong><\/em><\/a> journal website.<\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article Summary by Rosemary J Jolly I use the Humanities to expose how we conceive of the human as a construction that can be changed. I counter Enlightenment Man, the basic \u2018unit\u2019 of Western medicine, with the African humanism of Es\u2019kia Mphahlele. Mpahlele describes humans as needing to live with, rather than exploiting, non-human animals [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2022\/07\/19\/decolonising-man-resituating-pandemic-an-intervention-in-the-pathogenesis-of-colonial-capitalism\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15028,15047],"tags":[15044],"class_list":["post-3387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal-announcements","category-special-issues","tag-research"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Decolonising \u2018Man\u2019, Resituating Pandemic: An Intervention in the Pathogenesis of Colonial Capitalism - Medical Humanities<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&#039;The way we live is itself the sickness.&#039;\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=3387\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Decolonising \u2018Man\u2019, Resituating Pandemic: An Intervention in the Pathogenesis of Colonial Capitalism - Medical Humanities\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#039;The way we live is itself the sickness.&#039;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=3387\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Medical Humanities\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-07-19T09:00:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chris Pak\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chris Pak\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=3387#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=3387\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Chris Pak\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0e11c1a9a0f1f9f2aa898a719652c44c\"},\"headline\":\"Decolonising \u2018Man\u2019, Resituating Pandemic: An Intervention in the Pathogenesis of Colonial Capitalism\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-07-19T09:00:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=3387\"},\"wordCount\":457,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"research\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Journal Announcements\",\"Special Issues\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=3387#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=3387\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=3387\",\"name\":\"Decolonising \u2018Man\u2019, Resituating Pandemic: An Intervention in the Pathogenesis of Colonial Capitalism - 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