Mpinga Emmanuel Kabengele, London Leslie, Chastonay Philippe
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, Centre Médical Universitaire, Faculty of Medicine, Geneva University, Switzerland.
Med Health Care Philos. 2011 Aug;14(3):237-47. doi: 10.1007/s11019-011-9310-7.
The health and human rights movement (HHR) shows obvious signs of maturation both internally and externally. Yet there are still many questions to be addressed. These issues include the movement's epistemological status and its perspectives of development. This paper discusses critically the conditions of emergence of HHR, its identity, its dominant schools of thought, its epistemological postures and its methodological issues. Our analysis shows that: (a) the epistemological status of HHR is ambiguous; (b) its identity is uncertain in the absence of a validated definition: is it an action movement, an interdisciplinary field, a domain, an approach, a setting or a scientific discipline? (c) its main schools of thoughts are defined as "advocacists", "ethicists", "interventionists", "normativists"; (d) the movement is in the maturation process as a discipline in which "interface", "distance", "interference" and "fusion" epistemological postures represent the fundamental steps; (e) parent disciplines (health sciences and law) competences, logics and cultures introduce duality and difficulties in knowledge production, validation and diffusion; (f) there is need to re-write the history of the HHR movement by inscribing it not only into the humanitarian or public health perspectives but also into the evolution of sciences and its social, political and economical conditions of emergence. The ambiguous epistemological status of this field, the need to re-write its history, the methodological duality in its research, the question of the competence of the knowledge validation, as well as the impact of HHR practice on national and international health governance are the challenges of its future development. To meet those challenges; we call for the creation and implementation of an international research agenda, the exploration of new research topics and the evaluation of the movement's contribution to the national and global public health and human rights governance.
健康与人权运动（HHR）在内部和外部都呈现出明显的成熟迹象。然而，仍有许多问题有待解决。这些问题包括该运动的认识论地位及其发展视角。本文批判性地讨论了HHR出现的条件、其身份、主要思想流派、认识论立场及其方法论问题。我们的分析表明：（a）HHR的认识论地位不明确；（b）在缺乏有效定义的情况下，其身份不确定：它是一场行动运动、一个跨学科领域、一个范畴、一种方法、一个场景还是一门科学学科？（c）其主要思想流派被定义为“倡导者”“伦理学家”“干预主义者”“规范主义者”；（d）作为一门学科，该运动正处于成熟过程中，其中“界面”“距离”“干扰”和“融合”认识论立场代表着基本步骤；（e）母学科（健康科学和法律）的能力、逻辑和文化在知识生产、验证和传播中引入了二元性和困难；（f）有必要重写HHR运动的历史，不仅将其纳入人道主义或公共卫生视角，还应纳入科学的演变及其出现的社会、政治和经济条件。该领域模糊的认识论地位、重写其历史的必要性、研究中的方法论二元性、知识验证的能力问题以及HHR实践对国家和国际卫生治理的影响，都是其未来发展的挑战。为应对这些挑战，我们呼吁制定和实施一项国际研究议程，探索新的研究课题，并评估该运动对国家和全球公共卫生与人权治理的贡献。
