The meaning(s) of global public health history (original) (raw)

2020, História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos

The meaning(s) of global public health history The papers in this special issue were prepared and discussed before the tragic covid-19 pandemic. However, their findings and discussions are equally relevant to the moment we are experiencing today, when the present and future of global health actors, institutions, and governance are at the same time more visible, relevant, and uncertain. In order to understand the local, national, and international challenges of contemporary global health, it is important to acknowledge the research that has been devoted to its history over the past few years (Anderson, Cueto, Santos, 2016; Espinosa, 2013; Harrison, 2015). Several meetings, events, and academic publications testify to this previous interest; however, its meaning and scope have not always been clear. For some scholars, studying the history of global health means focusing on the processes involved in the transnational circulation of people, diseases, medical resources, and health programs and questioning the traditional binary opposition of center and periphery. The recent historiography rejects simplistic dichotomies and challenges the traditional assumption that historical paradigms are generated and diffused from the