Engaging with Heart in Global Health Partnerships

What does it mean to build a more peaceful, equitable and loving world, to solve problems together? Global health partnerships are a perfect place to explore ways to do this because they rely on relationships. However, we are coming out of a dominant paradigm of Western science and colonialism that is often an invisible driver of our thoughts and actions. This frequently invisible yet insidious history still frames much of our understanding and our actions in every facet of life, including in science and global health. Continuing business-as-usual, without deep introspection and intention, leads us to replicate inequities and instabilities within our relationships with each other and between people and nature. These are experienced as traumas by all of us, some more easily seen than others. Many appear as individual and widespread human health concerns, as well as social and environmental disruption and degradation. This chapter explores ways in which we can create opportunities for healing these traumas while working together on solutions to immediate and long-term global health issues.