10 - Health humanities on the front lines

Health humanities as ethical engagement

the humanities acts as a witness, and forms an ethical responsibility. This field critiques neutrality when neutrality causes harm

The Gaza Health crisis

Israeli government blocking aid, food, water, medical supplies, and fuel. Continued combardment of civilian areas, hospitals, and ambulances. hundreds of attacks on healthcare facilities, over 1000 healthcare workers murdered. Mass displacement and famine, fewer than ten hospitals remain without anesthesia, power, or sanitation.

genocide (Canada Criminal Code)

genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part any identifiable group, namely,

(a) killing members of the group; or

(b) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction

International bodies on genocide

These determinations are NOT political opinions -- they are legal and investigative findings

International Criminal Court on gaza issue

issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for starving civilians as a method od warfare, and murder, persecution, extermination, and other inhumane acts

Amnesty International on gaza issue

concluded that Israel's actions constitute genocide

Human Rights Watch on gaza issue

determined evidence of Israel's acts are genocidal and have intent to destroy

UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on gaza issue

found credible evidence of genocidal intent based on direct statements by Israeli officials, mass killings, serious bodily and mental harm, forced displacement, destruction of infrastructure essential for life

Medical neutrality and obligations

Medicine has always been linked to war, neutrality, ethics, and state violence

1949 Geneva Convention

Created after WWII to prevent genocide, mass atrocities, and militarized attacks on health systems

Principles of the Geneva Convention (in relation to health)

• Protect civilians, including prohibitions on murder, torture, or collective punishment

• Protect medical units—must not be attacked

• Require unhindered humanitarian aid

• Prohibit infrastructure essential for survival

• Require humane treatment of wounded regardless of political affiliation

Obligations of the medical community

• “The medical community has a moral and professional duty to speak out against these violations of international law and human rights. However…there has been inadequate and insufficient action from medical bodies.”

Key arguments:

• Attacks on Gaza health system represents grave violation of Geneva Convention

• Most international medical bodies have issued weak statements that avoid naming perpetrators or using term “genocide”

• The silence violates the principles* they aim to uphold

What is CanMEDS?

• Physician competency framework used in Canada

• Defines the skills, knowledge, and attitudes physicians need to provide high-quality patient care

• Developed by Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada

• Outlines seven key roles/ competencies for physicians

• Guides medical education and practice standards nationwide

CanMEDS principle - Leadership

Calls for principled and courageous stands for justice

CanMEDS principle - Health Advocate

Physicians must identify and address inequities

CanMEDS principle - Scholar

Ability to evaluate evidence

CanMEDS principle - Professional

Commitment to human dignity, human rights

College

the regulatory body of the profession - ensures standards of practiec and oversees the performance of its members. Disciplines members who overstep. In the public's interest

Association

representative of its member professionals, acts in its members interestst and advocates for things like equal pay, reasonable working hours etc.

Canadian medical institutions' reponses to Gaza health crisis

No major Canadian medical body has issued any statements on the genocide despite ICC and UN findings.

Canadian Medical Association reponses to Gaza health crisis

Condemned attacks on medical facilities and health care workers, calling for end to violence and unrestricted humanitarian access

College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario reponses to Gaza health crisis

Doesn’t take positions on international conflict unless pertinent to medical practice in Ontario

Silence as institutional complicity?

• Avoidance of naming perpetrators

• Abandonment of health advocacy responsibilities

• Failure to protect members experiencing disciplinary action for speaking out

• Selective application of human rights principles?

• Silence reinforces dominant narratives (hegemony) and reproduces structural violence

Health humanities as inherently activist

• Health humanities is not value-neutral

• It has always asked: How do we witness suffering, and what do we do with that knowledge?

• Enactivism: knowledge emerges relationally; listening → responsibility

• Critical humanities: interrogates power, colonialism, exclusion

• Embodiment: bodies tell political stories

• Field committed to justice, not passive observation

What is grassroots advocacy?

Bottom-up collective action led by communities, not institutions

grassroots advocacy Often relies on:

Shared stories, creative expression, mutual aid, community organizing, resistance to dominant power structures

grassroots advocacy - Why it matters here?

• When institutions fail, people mobilize

• Grassroots movements often operate through arts and digital platforms

Indigenous health humanities: Foundations for art as activism

• Art/ storytelling = medicine, not a luxury

• Story heals, restores continuity, confronts (colonial) harm

• Storytelling requires relational accountability → listening = ethical responsibility

Indigenous health humanities Parallel to Gaza:

• Art as survival, healing, memory, resistance

• Art used to confront colonial violence

• Art creates alternative spaces when institutions fail

ethical responsibility

knowledge emerges relationally - and listening becomes a responsibility to hear stories and experiences so you can do something about it. You may not be able to save the world, but you can have an influence on your immediate circle

What indigenous health humanities can teach us about grassroots activism

Stories as resistance

Arts as critiques

Collective memories

Relational accountability

Sovereignty of voice

Stories as resistance

challenging the status quo, challenging hemogeny, challenging dominant narratives

Arts as critiques

exposure of structural violence through various art forms

Collective memories

keeping histories and stories and experiences alive when institutions attempt to erase them

Relational accountability

being a witness requires one to take on responsibilities to change the narrative, even if it was just within their own circle of influence

Sovereignty of voice

stories belong to communities, not to corporations or institutions to profit off of or make themselves look good

Technoculture =

technology shaped by culture, power, ideology

Technoculture on advocacy

• Digital networks transform how people communicate health experiences

• Digital platforms, AI, shape what voices are heard

• Digital spaces are political: not neutral, not equal

• Examples of systemic bias, privileging certain perspectives

Digital grassroots activism for Gaza

• Real-time reporting by journalists, civilians, physicians despite internet blackouts

• Citizen archiving of war crimes

• Global campaigns:

Digital grassroots activism for Gaza Connection to health humanities:

• Community-generated knowledge resists erasure

• Tech platforms become battlegrounds of visibility

Arts-based activism for Gaza

makes suffering visible!!! bridges emotion and information, building collective identity and solidarity. Because arts can be abstract, this also circumvents institutional censorship since they can be interpreted many different ways

Why the arts matter

• Health humanities teaches us that activism is not optional

• We are implicated in the suffering of others

• Arts serve as a call to action

• Art transforms witnessing into action → it heals, resists, remembers, connects