MINI REVIEW article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Life-Course Epidemiology and Social Inequalities in Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1658591
This article is part of the Research TopicMigration and Health: A Human Rights Perspective - Conference Insights and BeyondView all 7 articles
70 years of decoloniality: Epistemic disobedience and global public health
Provisionally accepted
Justine McGovern1,2*
Lisa Fusco1,2- 1Lehman College, City University of New York, Bronx, NY, United States
- 2Lehman College, New York, United States
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The term "epistemic disobedience" was coined by Walter Mignolo in his 2009 arFcle enFtled Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and De-Colonial Freedom. While the decolonializaFon of global health research and pracFce has gained tracFon (ie, McCoy, et al., 2023) epistemic disobedience is an emergent perspecFve in scholarship occurring at the intersecFon of public health and populaFon movement. Linked to decoloniality, a pracFce that coalesced in 1955, epistemic disobedience refers to research pracFces and perspecFves that dismantle the power dynamics of colonialism by de-linking geo-poliFcs from knowledge building (Mignolo, 2009). This mini review defines and situates key terms in historical and current literature; criFcally explores the usage of epistemic disobedience in public health scholarship; draws on case examples to suggest ways to apply epistemic disobedience; and arFculates applicaFons and implicaFons in public health research and pracFce that seeks to increase health equity as a human right.
Keywords: epistemology, Decolonization, global health, Theory, Research, Practice
Received: 02 Jul 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 McGovern and Fusco. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Justine McGovern, Lehman College, City University of New York, Bronx, NY, United States
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