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Upstream

Decolonizing Medicine with Rupa Marya and Raj Patel

Upstream

Upstream

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.92.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2021

⏱️ 64 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Many of us around the world live on colonized land. In recent years, the conversation around "decolonization" has been seamed through many different contexts, from the land back movement to the push to decolonize various institutions. But what would actual decolonization look like? And how do we go about decolonizing things like our minds and our systems? In this Conversation, we hear from Rupa Marya and Raj Patel about their book, "Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice," out on August 3rd. The book explores one area of our lives that has been subject to colonization: that of medicine. They authors provide both a practical and metaphorical exploration of the impacts of colonization through the idea of inflammation — inflamed bodies, an inflamed society, and an inflamed planet. Their insights help us to dismantle colonization in our institutions and in our minds while building new connections and ways of being through what the authors call "deep medicine." Rupa Marya is a physician, activist, composer, Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and faculty director of the Do No Harm Coalition. Raj Patel is an activist, award-winning author, film-maker and academic. Raj is Research Professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin and a Senior Research Associate at the Unit for the Humanities at the university currently known as Rhodes University (UHURU), South Africa. Upstream theme music is composed by Robert Raymond Intermission music is "Stolen Land" by Rupa and the April Fishes 

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Upstream is a labor of love. We couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans.

0:06.4

Please consider chipping in a one-time or reoccurring donation by visiting upstreampodcast.org forward slash support.

0:13.3

Thank you.

0:30.0

So what we're doing in this book is really advancing another level of diagnosis so that we're not just

0:43.5

diagnosing what's happening in the body as being a phenomenon in the body. We're understanding the

0:47.7

body is having very normal reactions to a pathological toxic social structure around it.

0:55.4

So if we want health for everybody, if we want to have a healthy society or a healthy

1:01.5

possibilities of health for all people, we have to start restructuring the society to make that possible.

1:09.8

You are listening to upstream upstream upstream an interview and documentary series that invites

1:18.1

you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. I'm Dela Duncan and I'm Robert Raymond

1:25.2

In this conversation, we hear from Rupa Maria and Raj Patel about their book, Inflamed,

1:31.1

Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, which will be out on August 3rd. In the first half of

1:37.9

the conversation, we speak with Rupa, a physician, activist, composer, associate professor of medicine at UCSF,

1:45.6

and faculty director of the Duno Harm Coalition. We explore the idea of individual, societal,

1:52.0

and global inflammation, the concepts of colonized and decolonized medicine,

1:57.1

and the way our bodies are reacting to the pathological toxic material conditions that we are

2:02.2

living under in capitalism. All right, Rupa, welcome, welcome to upstream so good to be with you today.

2:14.5

I'm wondering if you can tell us the inspiration for this book that is coming out in August.

2:21.6

So excited for folks to get to read it and be with this book, this amazing book,

2:27.4

Inflamed, Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice. So I'm wondering if you can tell us the

2:33.1

inspiration for the project in the book. Well, the book came out of several dialogues between

2:39.5

myself and Raj, and just, you know, it was his imitation, let's write a book together,

...

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