The Origins of Epistemicide in American Public Health Pre-Colonial Health Systems

Pre-Colonial Health Systems Multiple systems operated simultaneously, each rooted in land, body, and communityIndigenous nations: ecologically grounded plant knowledge, ceremony, relational healing West and Central African healing traditions: communal health, herbalism Midwifery and neighborhood healers among immigrant communities All systems shared a core feature: accountabilityCommunity councils, restorative practices, mutual obligation Health was communal, not individual Biodiversity analogy: heterogeneous ecosystems flourish; monocultures collapseSame principle applies to health systems Epistemicide as Colonial Method Disease was a genocidal tool, but also carried an epistemological frameworkIndigenous and African ways of knowing classified as inferior, pagan, or dangerous Healers criminalized; midwives called witches Epistemicide was not a side effect of colonization: it was a methodDevaluation created a vacuum for Western institutions to fill Knowledge survived through individuals and elders passing it downStill present in doula practice, ceremony, and individual reclamation work today The 1913 Turning Point Early formal public health (mid-19th century) was bold and coalition-basedPhysicians, housing reformers, poverty advocates, civil engineers Focused on environment: housing, water quality, food, urban conditions Herbert Winslow Hill’s 1913 book argued the 19th-century approach was wrongCentral claim: infectious disease has one source, a germ in an infected person Argued chasing “bad surroundings” was inefficient vs. finding and isolating the infected individual This shifted public health from treating the environment to treating the individualThe sick body was isolated from community, land, and ancestral knowledge Built in a Euro-Western assumption: people stand apart from nature COVID as a modern echo: contact tracing prioritized over lived conditions What Was Lost and Why It Matters Three things got “filed away” as irrelevant:Communal and ancestral knowledge (labeled superstition) The environment around the sick person The community that knew and sustained the person Public health became reducible to individual behavior and individual choice Communities are not accessing or trusting health systems nowRooted in this historical undermining Current “community engagement” efforts often lack authentic co-creation with communities as experts - 🔗 Stay Connected Take the Quiz → Discover where your organization most needs storytelling Let's connect on LinkedIn Lean more about how we can work together at https://madisonmurphybarney.com/entangled-health Reach out with questions and inquiries at [email protected]