{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,13]],"date-time":"2026-10-13T03:24:44Z","timestamp":1791861884828,"version":"4.3.4"},"reference-count":55,"publisher":"BMJ","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,16]],"date-time":"2022-03-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1647388800000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Weiss Chair Research Funds","award":["N\/A"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["N\/A"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["bmj.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Med Humanities"],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2022,1,10]]},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2022,6]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>This paper brings together fifth-wave public health theory and a decolonised approach to the human informed by the Caribbean thinker, Sylvia Wynter, and the primary exponent of African Humanism, Es\u2019kia Mpahlele. Sub-Saharan indigenous ways of thinking the human as co-constitutive in a subject we might call human-animal-\u2018environment\u2019, in conjunction with the subcontinent\u2019s experiences of colonial damage in disease \u2018prevention\u2019 and \u2018treatment\u2019, demonstrate the lack of genuine engagement with Indigenous wisdom in Western medical practice.<\/jats:p>\n               <jats:p>The paper offers a decolonial reading of pandemic history, focused primarily on the human immunodefiency virus (HIV), the severe acute respiratory syndrome of 2003 caused by the SARS Covid 1 virus (SARS-CoV1) and COVID-19, caused by the SARS COVID 2 virus (SARS-CoV2) to demonstrate the importance of the co-constitutive subject in understanding the genesis of these pandemics as driven by colonial-capitalism. I emphasise that prevention will indeed take the kinds of massive changes proposed by fifth-wave public health theory. However, I differ from the proponents of that theory in an insistence that the new kind of thinking of the human Hanlon <jats:italic>et al<\/jats:italic> call for, has already been conceived: just not within the confines of the normative human of Western culture.<\/jats:p>\n               <jats:p>I illustrate that Western Global Health approaches remain constitutionally \u2018deaf\u2019 to approaches that, although the West may not understand this to be the case, arise from fundamentally different\u2014and extra-anthropocentric\u2014notions of the human. In this context, Man as Wynter names Him is a subject ripe for decolonisation, rather than a premier site of capitalist development, including that of healthcare provision.<\/jats:p>\n               <jats:p>Recognising that most of us are not individually able to change the structural violence of the colonial capitalist system in which Global Health practices are embedded, I conclude with implications drawn from my argument for quotidian practices that enable healthcare providers see their actions within a harm reduction paradigm, in the context of communities experiencing intergenerational impoverishment consequent on colonial violence.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1136\/medhum-2021-012267","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,16]],"date-time":"2022-03-16T13:20:37Z","timestamp":1647436837000},"page":"221-229","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/crossmarkpolicy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["Decolonising \u2018man\u2019, resituating pandemic: an intervention in the pathogenesis of colonial capitalism"],"prefix":"10.1136","volume":"48","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0562-1127","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Rosemary J","family":"Jolly","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Comparative Literature, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16801, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"239","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,3,16]]},"reference":[{"issue":"10263","key":"2025092412305693000_48.2.221.1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1627","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(20)32417-X","article-title":"\u201cWill Global Health Survive Its Decolonisation?\u201d","volume":"396","author":"Abimbola","year":"2020","journal-title":"Lancet"},{"key":"2025092412305693000_48.2.221.2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1353\/bhm.1998.0158"},{"key":"2025092412305693000_48.2.221.3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1365-2923.2007.02991.x"},{"issue":"8","key":"2025092412305693000_48.2.221.4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1136\/bmjgh-2020-003394","article-title":"\u201cDecolonising Global Health: If Not Now, When?\u201d","volume":"5","author":"B\u00fcy\u00fcm","year":"2020","journal-title":"BMJ Global Health"},{"key":"2025092412305693000_48.2.221.5","unstructured":"Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . 2014. \u201cNational Institute of Minority and Health Disparaties.\u201d https:\/\/www.nimhd.nih.gov\/."},{"key":"2025092412305693000_48.2.221.6","unstructured":"Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . 2021. \u201cNational Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention.\u201d Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchhstp\/default.htm."},{"issue":"1","key":"2025092412305693000_48.2.221.7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"121","DOI":"10.1111\/jols.12213","article-title":"\u201cSmoke Free? 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