Shehnaz Munshi |

Shehnaz Munshi

Shehnaz Munshi is a HPSR researcher, occupational therapist, Emerging Voice (2018) and Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at Tekano. Currently she is the Project Manager for the Sheiham Family/Wits program on social determinants of health and health equity, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand. She serves on the steering committee of the People's Health Movement. @shehnazmunshi

The Coloniality of Being: Reflections on Trauma, Othering and Reimagining Praxis

“I think (others do not think, or do not think properly), therefore I am (others are-not, lack being, should not exist or are dispensable) “ (Maldonado-Torres’ critique of French philosopher René Descartes, 2007:252) This well-known quote from Descartes personifies some of the ways that have framed and informed our approaches to global...

Beyond Ethical Leadership: Grappling with Complexity & being a Systems Leader

On 20 April 2021, one of the authors of this blog, Shehnaz, organised the Sheiham-Sefularo Memorial Lecture on Health Equity on behalf of the Wits School of Public Health. Dr Nobuhle Judy Dlamini, Chancellor of Wits, delivered the keynote address entitled COVID-19 and the social determinants of health inequalities: reflections on ethical leader...

“Critically Examining Decolonization: The Field of Global Health”: some conference reflections

We are writing from the following places: Azania, The traditional lands of the Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations, which includes the Ojibwa, the Odawa, and the Potawatomie, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak and Attawandaron peoples, on lands connected with the London Township and Sombra Treaties of 1...

Global Health is still the “Master’s House”: how brave are we to decolonise and dismantle it?

Decolonisation is not a metaphor and decoloniality is not an end. Rather, it is a means, a segue, a process, a lens with multiple ends. To advance socially just health systems, we argue for global health scholars (and especially us located in postcolonial contexts) to take a political stance on the side of justice. We need to recognise that we ...

Decolonial thought and African consciousness for socially just health systems: An imaginative space

Decolonizing health in Africa is a conscientization project, historical and political in nature, that calls for a (k)new language and (k)new ways of being as thinkers and practitioners. On the 30th September 2020, 1st and 2nd October 2020, we plan to host a virtual Africa convening to have a conversation about decoloniality in the broa...

Decentering power in Health Policy and Systems Research: theorising from the margins

The field of Health Policy System Research (HPSR) offers us valuable theorisations and empirical work to guide us on how we can engage with the complex social, economic and political nature of health systems today. However, the field has not been able to fully grapple with theblind spots that are ever present in our reality. This is why we argu...

Work-life balance and work-life joy in global health: Four regional perspectives and a Call to Action

The issue of work-life balance has recently been highlighted in a number of global health discussions. For example, earlier this year, the Wellcome Trust quite publicly explored whether to introduce a 4-day working week (but decided against this). The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation introduced a 52-week paid parental leave (but then halved this...