On 10th July 2024, the Moving Beyond Solidarity Rhetoric in Global Health project team organised a workshop where global health practitioners discussed findings from the project’s consultative meetings conducted in Ghana and Guinea on the practice of solidarity in global health.
The workshop was part of the annual Oxford Global Health and Bioethics International Conference, which fosters multi-disciplinary debates and addresses ethical concerns in global health conception and implementation.
Dr. Owusu Samuel Asiedu and Prof. Nouvet Elysée presented the findings, followed by breakout sessions where participants discussed distinguishing familial duties from acts of solidarity and unpacked the meaning of ‘disinterested’ in the context of practicing solidarity.
“Perhaps we can use proximity in familial ties to distinguish. I would find it difficult to discuss solidarity in terms of my child or familial duties. These are obligations. Maybe for major life events, like death, there is an expectation to show up and contribute in terms of talking and money - these are solidaristic,” said one of the participants.
At another round table discussion, participants expressed that solidarity without disinterest is rare as there is always a ‘someone’ at the end of the process. Some examples like doing something to make someone look or feel good or some form of restoration or ‘paying forward’ were cited as good examples. However, they cautioned that if disinterest dominates, it's crucial to identify which elements (e.g “who’ and ‘what’ components of the act) are non-solidaristic.
The project will conduct additional consultative workshops in Australia, Costa Rica, India, and South Africa to uncover current practices, in addition to qualitative surveys among global health actors. These discussions are part of the project’s scope, which includes understanding current conceptions of solidarity in global health and developing metrics to improve practice.
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