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Dear LSHTM Community,
Like every paper you read, the selection below has been created to encourage and nurture critical thinking skills.
===== First, What do you know about xenocentrism? "The term xenocentrism refers to the desire to engage in the elements of another's culture rather than one's own. Styles, ideas and products can all be items of preference by someone with xenocentrist viewpoints"
I recently read an amazing post on Linkedin shared by Aurore Iradukunda, a student in the MSc Health Policy, Planning and Financing at LSE/LSHTM about the work of another student, Ayoola Abdul-Basit Oladipupo in the same program about this article called Neocolonization on a plate, with a soda to go
"A great analysis of the interconnections of xenocentrism and processes of (neo)colonization on consumer food preferences and obesity rates in African countries by Ayoola Abdul-Basit Oladipupo. In his research, he shows that the risk of obesity increases with socioeconomic status in several African countries, unlike in their European counterparts with comparable income levels. A must read!"
It is a TOTAL MUST READ! (Thanks Aurore!!)
''The common presentation of the dietary transition occurring in several African countries as an inevitable consequence of economic development masks the process of colonization, neocolonization, and acculturation as it pertains to food structures and choices in African societies. The export of Western food culture, from consumption to preparation, into African societies is an extension of the destruction of traditional food systems by European colonizers through the creation of cash-crop economies in the colonial era.''
The article was published on AfricaIsaCountry website which is a great resource for those looking for inspiration for summer project on anti-racism and colonialism in LMICs.
=====For those interested in humanitarian health, another great piece to start your reflection is Refugee debates have an African history problem by Christian A. Williams, a senior lecturer in anthropology at the University of the Free State in South Africa.
African history has been especially neglected in debates about refugees. For the past 60 years, much of the world’s refugee population has lived in, and hailed from, the African continent. Nevertheless, Africans remain at the periphery of global refugee debates, repeatedly reduced to stereotypes that present refugees either as victims or threats. With attention focused heavily on the refugee politics of Western host nations, the biological needs of refugees, and the biopolitics of refugee management, Africans’ unique histories of displacement and of hosting the displaced are regularly overlooked, seemingly insignificant to know.
=====Other interesting articles on the website for both students and potential supervisors include:
Beyond the Western Gaze by George Kibala Bauer about COVID-19
Food crimes by Rasna Warah about WFP Nobel Prize and the unintended consequences of food aid.
Beyond the Nobel Prize by Miriam Jerotich Kilimo about Wangari Maathai's work as a reflective scholar and critical thinker.
Enjoy!