Abstract
This article considers a broad perspective of “One Health” that includes local and animal knowledge. Drawing from various colonial efforts to link human, animal, and environmental health, it first shows that the current “One Health” initiative has its roots in colonial engagement and coincides with a need to secure the health of administrators (controlling that of local populations), while pursing use of resources. In our contemporary period of repeated epidemic outbreaks, we then discuss the need for greater inclusion of social science knowledge for a better understanding of complex socio-ecological systems. We show how considering anthropology and allied sub-disciplines (anthropology of nature, medical anthropology, and human-animal studies) highlights local knowledge on biodiversity as well as the way social scientists investigate diversity in relation to other forms of knowledge. Acknowledging recent approaches, specifically multispecies ethnography, the article then aims to include not only local knowledge but also non-human knowledge for a better prevention of epidemic outbreaks. Finally, the conclusion stresses the need to adopt the same symmetrical approach to scientific and profane knowledge as a way to decolonize One Health, as well as to engage in a more-than-human approach including non-human animals as objects-subjects of research.
Highlights
The “One Health” initiative, a tripartite collaboration launched in 2008 between the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), advocates a rapprochement between human and veterinary medicine for a better understanding of infectious diseases that spread across species and how they interact in the environment
In the context of repeated global health crises, what does it mean today to encompass into a single approach human, animal, and environmental health as highlighted by colonial administrators and currently promoted by “One Health” initiatives? While acknowledging the past colonial view, it is important to remove it from current thinking and relations with populations
This way, apprehending health as “one” primarily requires us to renew the appreciation of knowledge possessed and implemented by local populations of their immediate environments. The latter have much to say about the current state of knowledge on biodiversity as well as the way to manage it. Thanks to their local knowledge, their approach and management of territories and resources, local populations are essential actors in meeting the challenges related to global health and environmental risks
Summary
The colonial root of “One Health”The “One Health” initiative, a tripartite collaboration launched in 2008 between the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), advocates a rapprochement between human and veterinary medicine for a better understanding of infectious diseases that spread across species and how they interact in the environment. Scientific researchers involved in “One Health” should integrate in their discourse the fact that a large part of the rhetoric they use is not new but deeply rooted in the colonial sciences that aimed at developing local societies, their health, and the health of their livestock, as well as their economies by favoring their integration into the Empire market as that time, and to the global market today.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
