The colonization of epidemiological knowledge: A decolonial reading of the contemporaneity of the covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

This paper makes a critical assessment of epidemiology with the COVID-19 pandemic as a social event. It examines the philosophical re-flection in which Agamben defines as contempo-rary those able to stand back to see the dark side of their own era. In the light of decolonial criticism, the concept of “epidemiological transition,” with its theory of transcendence of “social determinants of health” and binarism of epidemiological variables as supports of the biomedical and quantitati-ve structuring of the epidemiology of risk factors is queried. The scientific ambition to dominate nature and the engendering of a linear and evolu-tionary historical time, beginning in western mo-dernity, contextualizes the epistemicides of popular wisdom and the coloniality of epidemiological knowledge. The theoretical constitution of decolo-nial thought is historically analyzed, highlighting its greater critical potential to reveal the structural colonization of epidemiological knowledge. The post-pandemic future is considered and Prigogi-ne’s idea of bifurcation – as elaborated by Sousa Santos – and Paulo Freire’s untested feasibility are related with the concept of time as the creation and expectation of social transformation.