On the blood of others: re-visiting how “health” happens in interdisciplinary scholarship

Abstract

ABSTRACT In much interdisciplinary scholarship, when health and well-being are conceptualized, they are often contextualized in white supremacist, racist, and capitalist frames. To reframe scholarship towards more useful possibilities, we first must confront the historical and ongoing violence brought forth by our reliance on notions of health that often come directly from colonization and slavery and have failed to provide possibilities of health for racialized folks. If capitalism can be described as ‘labour on the backs of Others’, then health is founded on the blood of Others – particularly, those who were enslaved. In naming the socio-historical legacies and their current manifestations, we name some of the interconnected oppressions that we must dismantle in our everyday work as we engage with racialized communities. Our work requires us to politicize the role of health and healing as a crucial component of the better world we are building.