On epidemiology as racial-capitalist (re)colonization and epistemic violence

ABSTRACT

This commentary reflects upon power-knowledge dynamics and matters of epistemic, procedural, and distributive justice that undergird epidemiological knowledge production related to racial health inequities in the U.S. Grounded in Foucault’s power-knowledge concepts—“objects”, “ritual”, and “the privileged”—and guided by Black feminist philosopher Kristie Dotson’s conceptualization of epistemic violence, it critiques the dominant positivist, reductionist, and extractivist paradigm of epidemiology, interrogating the settler-colonial and racial-capitalist nature of the knowledge production/curation enterprise. The commentary challenges epidemiology’s affinity for epistemological, procedural, and methodological norms that effectively silence/erase community knowledge(s) and nuance in favor of reductionist empirical representations/re-presentations produced by researchers who, often, have never stepped foot inside the communities they aver to model. It also expressly names the structurally racist reality of a “colorblind” knowledge production/curation system controlled by White scholars working from/for an invisibilized White scientific gaze. In this spirit, this commentary engages the public health critical race praxis principle of “disciplinary self-critique”, illuminating the inherent contradictions of a racial health equity discourse that fails to interrogate the racialized power dynamics underlying its knowledge production enterprise. In doing so, this commentary seeks to (re)frame and invite discourse regarding matters of epistemic violence and (re)colonization as manifest/legible within epidemiology research, suggesting that the structural racism embedded within – and perpetuated through – our collective work must be addressed to advance antiracist and decolonial public health futures. In this regard, I suggest the value of engaging poetry as praxis—as mode of knowledge production/expression to “center the margins” and offer counternarratives to epidemiology’s epistemic violence.

KEYWORDS:

• Epidemiology
• racial capitalism
• decolonizing
• epistemic violence
• poetry

Acknowledgements

Publication of this article in an open access journal was funded by the Portland State University Library’s Open Access Fund.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Here, it is important to note that, as Zuberi and Bonilla-Silva (2008) articulate, “White logic and White methods can be – and have been – used by members of all racialized groups” (p.18). This sentiment, of course, finds symmetry in the writings of decolonizing scholars Linda Smith’s and Frantz Fanon’s writings/concerns regarding how colonized peoples can and do internalize and engage/uphold settler-colonial logics and proclivities (e.g. “brief case carrying Indigenous people”, the “colonized intellectual”). The influence/role of whiteness and the reach of White logic/methods in racial health inequities knowledge production then, of course, is not discretely conterminous with those who are racialized as White. In other words, plenty of scholars of color engage in the same practices.

2. For example, if a scholar at a U.S. university is awarded a $10-million grant to research “racial health inequities” related to, say, maternal and child health, their university will take in “F&A” revenue of usually somewhere between 25% and 50% of the total awarded amount. This money is used for things that have absolutely nothing to do with “racial health inequities” in maternal and child health. Rather, it’s a revenue source to support university operations, which can be interpreted broadly (e.g. the funded scholar needs office space, our campus needs new tulips). This positions racial health inequities research as a capitalist revenue stream to advance university interests/operations that have no direct connection to advancing racial health equity, i.e. monetization and commodification of knowledges about inequities experienced by communities of color with no requirement to demonstrate reciprocal benefit.

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Funding

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