Seeds of change: Reflections on the Decolonising Global Health blog series

Global teaching and learning are one of the guiding principles of the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. Contributors of our 12-part Decolonising Global Health (DGH) blog series have spanned students from the MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership, Applied Digital Health, Translational Health Sciences and Evidence-Based Health Care, to lecturers and colleagues from within and outside the University.

The idea for this series emerged from MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership student Dr Maju Brunette, who wrote several reflections for our 12-part series. She shares below reflections on what motivated her to propose this series and why storytelling remains central to decolonising global health. Maju reflected on the origins and personal significance of the series:

‘I find myself nostalgic as my time at Oxford Uni comes to an end, but even more so because this is the last blog in the Decolonising Global Health series. Co-creating this series has been a journey of growth, unlearning and reframing. Along the way, we’ve reached thousands of students, scholars and communities in the Global South and North that otherwise we would not have been able to connect via our traditional (or standard) channels.’

Maju continued, ‘Witnessing people suffer from unjust health experiences and how our systems (medical, academic, political, economic) perpetuate such injustices has been a major focus of my journey as a global health scholar and social justice activist. Throughout our DGH series, I’ve aimed to listen to the murmurs of individuals whose voices have been deliberately silenced and worked to include their stories in academic platforms across the globe.

My hope is that each blog in this series has and will ignite ‘semillitas’ (seeds) of change within our global communities impacted by Tuberculosis, hunger, poverty, racism, structural violence, apartheid, genocide, climate change and so on. I firmly believe change is possible if, and when, academic institutions revisit and reframe their traditional roles and missions. In the meantime, all of us must continue sharing our stories, even if it requires moral courage. We might then be able to move the needle and together be a driving force for decolonising global health and medicine.’

Maju Brunette pictured at the Green Templeton Ball, 2024; Photo Credit: Sofya Lebedeva

A tapestry of perspectives: Themes from the series

This blog series has served as a platform for a diverse set of voices to examine what it truly means to decolonise global health. Rather than advancing a single narrative, it has provided a platform for students and academics to interrogate power, equity and transformation from multiple vantage points.

The early blogs established the conceptual foundations: Maju Brunette’s opening reflections on narrative and power in Rejecting the Single Story, followed by her examination of Manufacturing Consent in global health education and research and her analysis of poverty, power and tuberculosis.

Subsequent contributions expanded the conversation through thematic strands:

• Digital and institutional paradigms – Aditi Kapadia challenged Western dominance in digital health systems.
• Identity, positionality and self-work – Dr Davide Bilardi reflected on decolonising the self, while Sarah Alkandari and Dr Sridhar Venkatapuram explored leaning into our discomfort to make change.
• Conflict, storytelling and structural injustice – Maju Brunette and Dr Nick Maynard examined narrative and moral responsibility in times of crisis.
• Indigenous and community-rooted perspectives – Dr Nicole Redvers articulated the distinctions between ‘decolonising’ and ‘Indigenising’ global health.
• Reimagining practice – Dr Maju Brunette explored gender and equity through her work with OUP; Sarah Alkandari and Dr Sridhar Venkatapuram critiqued global health’s cyclical rebranding; and Debbie Dada with Anne Neumann proposed accompaniment as a relational approach to co-liberation.

Together, these contributions emphasise both the breadth of the decolonisation challenge and the possibilities that emerge when we intentionally make space for many stories and many ways of knowing.

Reflections from contributors

Across the series, contributors described the writing process as both introspective and challenging – an invitation to sit with the tensions, contradictions and responsibilities embedded in efforts to decolonise global health. Several reflected on what the experience revealed about the field’s foundations. As Sarah Alkandari noted, ‘colonisation is not a weakness of the field – it is the field,’ observing that global health’s identity has long been sustained by unequal flows of authority and resource. Dr Davide Bilardi echoed this concern, sharing that the writing ‘reopened the Kilifi lessons: that power saturates relationships, even the kindest ones,’ and that meaningful decolonisation requires attention to ‘who decides, who benefits, who speaks and who is accountable.’

For others, the experience invited a return to their lived experiences. ‘I found myself thinking about my childhood,’ Aditi Kapadia shared, recalling a time when universal access to healthcare in India was a national aspiration. Through this process, she came to understand decolonisation as ‘supporting people within a country to define and pursue their own priorities… without imposing a Western-centric mindset.’ Dr Nicole Redvers highlighted a different challenge: reflecting on Indigenous Peoples rights within a UK institutional context where their presence is limited, requiring ‘a creative lens to talk about issues that may seem distant’ yet remain urgent.

Looking ahead: The future of decolonisation

While each author brought their own unique perspective, they all converged on the need for structural shifts. Sarah Alkandari called for people to ‘stop trying to make an unequal system equitable’ and to instead ‘redirect the vast funding, expertise and institutional infrastructure that supports global health into an alternative home’. Nicole Redvers urged embedding cultural safety across all organisations. Aditi Kapadia called for a visible rebalancing of power so that local actors become ‘co-authors of the future of global health.’ Davide Bilardi emphasised the need to ‘lock in equitable co-governance’ by shifting budgets, authorship and accountability.

These reflections remind us that decolonising global health is not a single project but an ongoing practice – rooted in humility, discomfort and a willingness to redistribute voice and value.

Where do we go next?

This final section, written by Maju Brunette, invites us to consider how these ideas might shape what comes next:

Can we envision a global academic community that’s ready to co-design strategies to achieve health equity? As our dear Seye Abimbola reminds us, ‘Achieving health equity can only be a by-product of striving for dignity and justice’ – and this is fully realised when local social actors are not just included in global conversations but are recognised as authoritative producers (epistemic justice) and users (epistemic dignity) of knowledge. I believe this is the only way we can move the centre of gravity in global health research and practice. Our resilient global communities have different ways of learning and doing, and so it is critical that we address perpetuating structural inequities with a solid epistemic foundation. With this in mind, I invite you to join me in reflecting on these couple of questions:

• From our places of power and privilege, how can we work together to integrate and sustain biomedical and social interventions that help build healthier, prosperous communities locally and globally? What would a fair and inclusive decision-making process look like?
• Could our collective consciousness help drive the decolonisation of research institutions so that we can truly engage with marginalised communities, civil society and local governments?

As we think about these questions, I encourage you to begin telling your own stories – because stories matter. They all matter. Let us share them within our global community. Let us hold on to the ideas we explored in this 12-part journey: Nkali (power), Obuntu (interconnectedness), Sumud (resilience) and more. We must keep working to ensure that everyone has a fair chance to live healthy, balanced and prosperous lives. In doing so, we remain true to the core principles that guide global health professionals, as our global health diplomat, Dr Peter Piot, reminds us:

1. We believe that each individual life is equally important;
2. We believe that we should do what we can to prevent the suffering of others; and
3. We believe that everyone deserves dignity, safety and a future that offers hope.

Series acknowledgements

Our sincere thanks go to all contributors who shared their insights with honesty and courage, and to the readers who have engaged with this series throughout the year. We are grateful for the support of colleagues across the department and collaborators who helped bring this work to life. For those wishing to explore related programmes and events, we invite you to follow our ongoing decolonisation initiatives. While this marks the final instalment of the series, it is only the beginning of a broader, continuing conversation.