Teaching Critical Reflection on Epistemic Injustice: The Case of a Collaborative International Public Health Course

Abstract

We present pedagogical reflections on teaching the concept of epistemic injustice through an undergraduate course run collaboratively at campuses in Kyrgyzstan, Palestine, Sierra Leone, and the United States. Our course, entitled Solving Each Other’s Public Health Problems, enabled students to engage with epistemological power structures by playing the role of both international development donor and local beneficiary. By building on discussions of realworld issues, fostering interpersonal relationships, modeling productive discourse through transparent feedback and providing intellectual space for selfreflection and empathy, the course provides a pedagogically transformative framework for international collaborative education.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Open Society Foundations’ Open Society University Network [OR2021-83138].

Notes on contributors

Elena Kim

a

Elena Kim ([email protected]) is a Visiting Psychology Professor at Bard College, USA and at the American University of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan. Her research focus is on gender, violence and global development.

Helen Epstein

b

Helen Epstein ([email protected]) is Visiting Professor of Human Rights and Global Public Health at Bard College. Her articles on global health and human rights have appeared in the Lancet, PLOS ONE, and other specialist journals as well as the New York Review of Books, the Nation and the New York Times.

Jonas Ecke

c

Jonas Ecke ([email protected]) has worked in the fields of global health and humanitarian aid, as well as social work. With experience in Liberia, Ghana, Yemen, and South Sudan, he delves into local perceptions of diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and Ebola.

Joshua Bardfield

d

Joshua Bardfield ([email protected]) is Executive Director of SkyHigh Farm, a food justice not-for-profit organization that deploys agricultural and arts programming to build greater equity in food systems. Care.

Maha Husseini

e

Maha Husseini ([email protected]) is an assistant professor of Public Health at the Faculty of the School of Public Health and the School of Medicine at Al-Quds University. She is currently the Chair of the Department of Public Health Nutrition and the head of the Scientific Research Club of the School of Public Health.

Jia B. Kangbai

f

Jia B. Kangbai ([email protected]) is an Assistant Professor of Public Health at the Njala University in Sierra Leone and an Adjunct Associate Professor of the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. His speciality is infectious disease epidemiology and global health security.

Elena Molchanova

g

Elena Molchanova ([email protected]) is a psychology professor at the American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan, who research focuses on posttraumatic stress, disorders featuring somatic symptoms and mental health policies in Central Asia.