International health and health sovereignty

El CLACSO Working Group International health and sovereignty . With over 10 years of experience, it is the most important network as an epistemic community of critical thinking in Health in our region that It arises from diverse academic processes and collective health-related political spaces that came together in the need to create a new regional platform for training, studies, critical thinking, and geopolitical action in Greetings from the South and Health Sovereignty. 

The goal is to produce a new plot between decolonization, autonomy and health sovereignty strategy towards a new epistemic and practical conception of Latin American Caribbean critical thinking in health from the South situated in the 21st Century that is nourished by our philosophies of the South, by the social sciences and critical theories of the Global South as well as by knowledge systems and wisdom of Abya Yala. 

The Working Group proposes to examine, decolonize, update, and work on Critical Thinking in Health from the Latin American and Caribbean region, addressing the foundations of the decolonial turn and thinking for health from the South and the strategy of regional health sovereignty. It carries out critical analyses of the actors and global agendas of the Global North and the dependence of our theories and policies, as well as of schools of training in public health and epidemiology, on the geopolitical mechanisms of modern Western scientific thought, from clinical biomedicine and tropical medicine to Eurocentric social medicine, as well as Pan-American health and liberal global health. Thus, lines of study and collaborative and innovative group work are proposed, such as Critical Studies for the Refounding of health systems; the key contributions of decolonial, black, and community feminisms are developed for the intersectional-territorial monitoring of health and for the comprehensive and intercultural care of health and life; studies and practices of Critical Epidemiology are promoted, as well as the study of the international determinants of health, Socio-environmental Health and the epidemiology of extractivism, South-South migrations and border health, the determinations and management of public health emergencies; schools of government and management for Health Sovereignty from the Global South are strengthened, among other fields. We also have the Open Chair of Social and Territorial Movements for Health Sovereignty, which is coordinated and promoted by the MST of Brazil, CONAIE Ecuador, Junta de Prietas of the Dominican Republic, Doctors of the World, the Network of Popular Doctors (Brazil), ABRASCO, medical associations and unions, the INSP!R Network for Social Protection, among others.

Our regional platform works from 3 levels of action in the Regional Geopolitics with regional Thematic Study Groups, at the level of work agendas with National and Institutional Centers Country (currently there are 15 national Country centers and more than 20 active institutional centers) and in new epistemic communities with researchers at the individual level.

The regional study and working groups are:

1. Health from the South and Health Sovereignty
2. Decolonial Feminisms, Racism and Health
3. Critical Studies for the Refounding of Health Systems
4. Critical Epidemiology and Socio-environmental Health
5. South-South Migration and Border Health

Finally, our 6 areas of intervention are:

• Knowledge production and critical research with regional-national study groups.
• Specialized technical and political health training from the CLACSO Postgraduate Network and with our postgraduate continuing education program with various institutional alliances
• Dissemination and circulation of critical thinking in health in Latin America and the Caribbean through regional conferences, national workshops, forums and seminars, schools, among others.
• Open inter-institutional networks and regional cooperation from the Global South, especially with Latin America-Caribbean and Africa
• Technical and political support to management and government spaces in the Global South.
• Open Chair of Social Movements for Health Sovereignty

Currently, as a network and epistemic community, we are organized with 400 researchers and academics from 55 Research Centers, academic institutions, schools of public health, social movements, and civil society organizations in 23 countries of the region: Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica, Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, South Africa, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Senegal, Mozambique.

Coordinate

[+] Work plan 2026-2028