Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
BMJ Glob Health. 2022 Apr;7(4). doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2022-008950.
Epistemic injustice is a growing area of study for researchers and practitioners working in the field of global health. Theoretical development and empirical research on epistemic injustice are crucial for providing more nuanced understandings of the mechanisms and structures leading to the exclusion of local and marginalised groups in research and other knowledge practices. Explicit analysis of the potential role of epistemic injustice in policies and practices is currently limited with the absence of methodological starting points. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature by providing a guide for individuals involved in the design and review of funding schemes wishing to conduct epistemic injustice analysis of their processes using a decolonial lens. Placing contemporary concerns in a wider historical, political and social context and building from the intertwined issues of coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge and coloniality of being that systematically exclude non-Western epistemic groups, this practice paper presents a three-step decolonial approach for understanding the role and impact of epistemic injustices in global health research funding. It starts with an understanding of how power operates in setting the aim of a call for research proposals. Then, the influence of pose and gaze in the review process is analysed to highlight the presence of epistemological colonisation before discussing methods to address the current funding asymmetries by supporting new ways of being and doing focused on knowledge plurality. Expanding research on how epistemic wrongs manifest in global health funding practices will generate key insights needed to address underlying drivers of inequities within global health project conception and delivery.
认识不公正是全球健康领域的研究人员和从业者日益关注的研究领域。对认识不公的理论发展和实证研究对于提供更细致的理解导致研究和其他知识实践中排斥本地和边缘群体的机制和结构至关重要。由于缺乏方法论起点，目前对政策和实践中认识不公潜在作用的明确分析受到限制。本文旨在通过为参与设计和审查资助计划的个人提供指导来填补这一文献空白，这些个人希望使用去中心化视角对其过程进行认识不公分析。本文将当代关注置于更广泛的历史、政治和社会背景中，并从权力、知识和存在的殖民性等交织问题出发，这些问题系统地排除了非西方的认识群体，提出了一个三步去中心化方法，用于理解认识不公在全球健康研究资助中的作用和影响。它首先从理解权力如何在确定研究提案呼吁的目标中发挥作用开始。然后，分析审查过程中的姿势和注视的影响，以突出存在认识论殖民化，然后讨论通过支持关注知识多样性的新的存在和做事方式来解决当前资金不对称的方法。扩大对认识不公如何在全球健康资金实践中表现的研究将为解决全球健康项目概念和实施中不平等的根本驱动因素提供所需的关键见解。
