Beyond the orthodoxies of decolonial standpoints: medicine, biography, and African agency
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Using the method of medical biography, this article challenges some of the more treasured decolonial viewpoints on knowledge production in and from the global South. The biography in question concerns one of the leading cardiovascular scientists in the world with roots in South Africa, but whose breakthrough studies in medicine significantly altered global understandings of the relationship between poverty and heart disease. In composing the biography, the findings point to the influence of African agency in global medical science research, the power of global North/South research partnerships in a multipolar world and refute the notion that inequalities of resources mean inequalities in knowledge production on the part of medical (and indeed social) scientists in Africa.
Source: Comparative Education
Author: Jonathan D. Jansen
Institution: Stellenbosch University
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4407704411