Working towards global health equity by combatting misinformation, avoiding vaccine nationalism, and strengthening self-reliance
The Salzburg Global Health and Health Care Innovation program "Better Preparedness for the Next Pandemic: Developing Vaccine Access Models with Low- and Middle-Income Countries" convened nearly thirty Fellows, including healthcare practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and representatives from health ministries in several African countries. They engaged in crucial discussions on access to suitable and affordable vaccines in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and several key points emerged related to misinformation, vaccine nationalism, and self-reliance.
In a discussion moderated by Lisa Adams, Associate Dean for Global Health and Director of Dartmouth’s Center for Health Equity, Salzburg Global Fellows sought to answer: “How can ‘infodemic’ – misinformation and vaccine hesitancy – be better managed, and what are the implications for procurement?” Drawing from their experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fellows mentioned the ineffectiveness of a top-down approach that tells the public what they should know, rather than listening to their needs and concerns. “If facts were enough to motivate people, we would have solved all of the healthcare problems,” noted a Fellow.
Another challenge is the speed of misinformation on social media, unfortunately targeting not only the wider public, but also healthcare workers, letting their own fears and misconceptions cloud their judgements. The group talked about a “multi-pronged approach” involving not just politicians or healthcare workers. “It really comes down to the issue of trust, and whom you trust or listen to. Is it our politicians, our healthcare leaders, is it religious leaders or our star athletes, who will be the spokesperson to mobilize the community?”, reflected a Fellow.
Fellows suggested involving people who interact with the community on a more personal level, such as social workers or primary care practitioners, also pre-pandemic. When addressing procurement, Fellows touched on the need to factor in vaccine hesitancy. In their experience, there was a significant mismatch between the supply of the COVID-19 vaccine and its demand. A possible solution shared amongst the group was to survey the public to determine acceptance of vaccines to forecast demand, rather than using the number of individuals eligible for them.
When trying to summarize the issue, they came back to trust. “We need to map where trust is; who is trusted and who are the influencers spreading misinformation? There is a displacement of trust and if you start with that, you can start to make change.”
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the imperative to confront vaccine nationalism has become evident. Disparities in vaccine access highlight the need for collective action to safeguard global health. As storytelling contributes to vaccine nationalism, countries should shift their perspectives to view vaccine access as a global matter rather than relying on nationalist narratives.
Patrick Amoth, Director General for Health in Kenya’s Ministry of Health, commented, “We are talking about a global problem that has no boundaries. If we do not protect all of us, then even you will not be protected… How do we change that narrative and ensure that we as a global community are tied together in this?” The group reached a consensus that “solving for vaccine nationalism is solving for a collective action problem”.
Fellows suggested several ideas that can serve as an antidote. The first proposal is an “intercontinental buddy system”, a term coined by the group to refer to countries partnering bilaterally across continents that have common needs but distributed risk. Countries like Brazil and Kenya are already cooperating in a similar framework, and this kind of bilateral partnership could be expanded into global cooperation. The second suggestion is a clearing house in the Africa CDC for countries to better manage the vaccine donations they are given. There would be great value in sharing cross-country data through the Africa CDC platform so that surplus vaccines can be shared with neighbors based on need.
The group suggested that countries start with cooperation through organized regional or economic blocks, especially in Africa. By implementing strategies like these that foster global solidarity in addressing public health challenges, countries can pave the way for a more equitable and resilient future for all.
“Self-reliance is about empowerment, not exclusion.” This was the defining idea contributed by a Fellow during a discussion seeking to answer: “How far can local manufacturing and research be developed in Africa, and what would
its impacts be?” Fellows focused on the challenges behind these questions.
They highlighted that the conversation around African self-reliance needs to evolve beyond considering vaccines as a finished product. It needs to strengthen numerous components, such as diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, and education to foster self-reliance. It also needs to consider all aspects of vaccine development, such as the pharmaceutical ecosystem, the research and development sector, the market, and the political environment.
One of the solutions that Fellows considered is increased coordination in procurement and regional manufacturing. As every country cannot build vaccine centers for every disease, it would be ideal to have specialized centers for specialized diseases. Biotech startups need to be supported, as they can bear the increased risks accompanying vaccine development. Universities are also often neglected spaces of tertiary education which must be supported to develop a talent pool for the research and development sector.
A unique vaccine financing model that can keep up with changes in demand and supply was suggested by Fellows. They proposed a combination of a subscription and variable model, where vaccine centers are paid a subscription cost to support their operations, with additional costs levied in cases of increased demand. Additionally, local and specialized manufacturing must be incentivized, which would also increase supply chain resilience.
Fellows emphasized that African self-reliance in vaccine manufacturing is not about excluding the rest of the world, as 100% self-reliance is neither feasible nor desirable. Instead, African countries seek to be more independant in a health emergency and to better prepare for the next potential pandemic.
Salzburg Global Fellow Ewa Antoszek explains how art can "transform the border into a space of dialogue that fosters conviviality"
This op-ed was written by Ewa Antoszek, who attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program "Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism" from September 19 to 23, 2023.
Since all researchers tend to focus on the contentious and divisive character of borders, I want to look at the attempts of artists and activists that challenge the exclusionary practices that befall those who either try to cross borders or live in their shadow. As I note in my article on the border doxa, “[s]uch challenges of dominant discourse take place practically everywhere the border transforms its locale into tenuous space, be it on the Israeli-Palestinian border, between East and West Berlin under a communist government, or on the US-Mexico border”. I want to focus on the examples of border “artivism” taking place literally on the US-Mexico border, as this border is regarded as an “exemplary site for examining both the localized and the diffused politics of bordering," since it “provides a paradigmatic case of global border development".
The examples of border artivism range in scope from graffiti writings, through installations directly on the border fence or in its vicinity, to various performances and actions involving communities from both sides of the border. Each medium has a different persuasive power and a distinct capacity to change the space of the border towards a more inclusive one.
Graffiti written directly on the poles of the fence or corrugated wall constitutes a transgression in itself, as one is not supposed to approach the border, let alone touch it; with current surveillance, such an attempt can have grave consequences. The slogans, including the famous “Fronteras: cicatrizes en la tierra” (“Borders: scars on the surface of the earth”) and other uplifting messages that appear on the wall rewrite the mainstream story of the border by pointing to its contentious character and calling for action to challenge its divisive power.
Overpass Light Brigade’s light graffiti projected on the prototypes of the wall had a similar function and also highlighted the issue of marginalization of migrants and some ethnic communities in the US. The medium of graffiti also allows for the immediacy of reaction; whenever some immigration- or border-related issues appear in the media, graffiti provides a prompt response. The installations, in turn, do not share graffiti’s characteristic of immediacy, as they require preparation and permits and are often mediated by an artist, like “The Mural of Brotherhood” by Enrique Chiu.
Their main role is to transform the border into a space of dialogue that fosters conviviality. In that sense, they also aim to challenge hostipitality experienced by Latinx and other ethnic groups in the US. Others point to the complex history of the borderlands, like “The Parade of Humanity”, which emphasized the interconnectedness of the two nation-states. “Border Dynamics” illustrated push and pull factors that determine the dynamics of US-Mexico relations. A French artist JR’s “Kikito” (“The Dreamer”) not only alluded to US immigration policies, but also addressed the question of the immigrant as the threatening “Other”, thus provoking a discussion about avarice and fear that led to marginalization of certain groups.
Aside from triggering discussions about the “Other”, the majority of those examples of artivism promote the involvement of communities on both sides of the border. In that way, they create a space for dialogue and exchange, opening up the possibility of cooperation between those two seemingly distinct spaces that used to be one.
Finally, border performances and happenings also share that last feature with border installations. Most of the artists-activists who conduct such events encourage people from both sides of the border to participate in them. The most well-known examples include Ana Teresa Fernández’s “Erasing the Border/Borrando La Frontera” (which she followed up in 2022 with “At the Edge of Distance”), JR’s “Giant Picnic”, M. Jenea Sanchez’s “Un-Fragmenting/Des-Fragmentando” or Ronald Rael’s “Swing Wall” (also known as “Teeter Totter Wall”, followed up by “Pedacito de la Tierra”, or “A Little Piece of Home” project), to name just a few. Regardless of the place on the border where these events were located, all of them drew people from both sides of the border to work together to diminish its divisive power. In that respect, they also created a space for those who are usually excluded from mainstream stories.
When I think about those diverse examples of artivism, I am aware that they are limited in their power to reverse mainstream attitudes toward strangers, migrants, refugees, and anyone who gets labeled as the “Other”. When I talk about artivism, I am often asked if I believe artivism can challenge hostipitality that so many people experience not only in the US but all over the world. I have grown to learn that the world is much more complex than we would want it to be. That is particularly conspicuous when we look at what is happening in Ukraine, Sudan, or Niger (which to some extent overshadowed other crises in the Mediterranean or on the Polish-Belarusian border).
Therefore, I know that artivism will not change the world immediately and completely, but at least it can create spaces of both literal and metaphorical hope. And that is very important, isn’t it?
Ewa Antoszek is an assistant professor at the department of British and American studies of UMCS Lublin, Poland. In her research, she examines the question of ethnic identities, representations of space in literature, border issues, with a particular focus on the US-Mexico border, and the situation of Latinx in the United States, as well as migrations and their effects. Her latest research is devoted to the issue of hostipitality.
Ewa attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program on “Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism” from September 19-23, 2023. The 2023 Salzburg Global American Studies Program focused on the contestations and renegotiations of boundaries beyond the nation-state, and how they are changing the representation of democratic pluralism.
Understanding adaptative authoritarianism, civil society, and uncertainties in Chinese political life
The inner workings of China sometimes seem a mystery to external observers. To gain an insight into political life in China, one should understand the nature of the Chinese state and its relationship with civil society. These were among the thoughts shared during the Pathways to Peace Initiative’s latest program “Crossing New Rivers by Feeling the Stones? Aspirations, Expectations, and China's Role in the 21st Century,” where experts on China such as Diana Fu and Iza Ding convened to explore China’s evolving role on the global stage.
Diana Fu, Salzburg Global Fellow and associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, described China as an autocracy or authoritarian regime, as political leaders are not elected or held accountable through voting mechanisms. However, she added that “one of the key things to understand about China is that, yes, it's an authoritarian regime, but it's not rigid. Authoritarian regimes change and China's authoritarian regime is very adaptive.”
Chinese policies function differently from policymaking in other contexts because “policy implies that there is some kind of deliberation, there is some kind of contestation from the ground-up, and that it is relatively stable over time. In reality, Chinese politics is driven by campaigns,” explained Diana.
In these campaigns, central leaders make a policy decision and then mobilize society to legitimize and propagandize it. Diana emphasized that understanding campaigns is central to understanding everything happening in China, saying that “when we're thinking about campaigns in China, the thing to understand is that it's not stable like a policy, [and] it can reverse at any point”.
Protests against the regime’s zero-COVID policy, for example, forced a sudden reversal of government policy. According to Diana, this revealed while “people may not be voters, they still sometimes have channels to voice their grievances and under certain conditions, the party-state will respond to that”.
These protests, in particular, signified “an unprecedented form of protest because it wasn't just about economic grievances… they were also upset politically that they couldn't even talk about being upset.” Proving its effectiveness, this protest in China ended the cycle of the COVID lockdown campaign.
The relationship between the Chinese state and civil society groups is intricate and varies depending on the nature of the groups involved. Iza Ding, Salzburg Global Fellow and associate professor of political science at Northwestern University, noted this relationship has deteriorated over the past few years, as “the government has put a lot more pressure on civil society, especially the ones that have the potential for politics”. The Chinese government acts differently towards different kinds of groups, largely depending on whether their purpose is political or not.
Iza said that while there has been a crackdown on groups like LGBT* organizations, other groups involved with apolitical topics like wildlife protection, forests, and national parks are still able to operate relatively unhindered.
This reality challenges the Western idea “that a state-society [relationship] is a zero-sum game and that the state is always trying to predate on society and society is always trying to push back,” added Iza. Contrary to this idea, some civil society organizations want to work with the government for financial and logistical support. However, when their interests diverge, a more zero-sum dynamic emerges. Iza notes that in the face of increasing repression, many civil society groups strive to adapt, navigate the changed situation, and continue their pursuits while living within the constraints imposed.
According to Diana, Chinese civil society today consists of “people in the grassroots, often young people, [who are] very idealistic and they want to see change. They don't necessarily want to see regime change, but they want to see change in terms of more freedom of expression for sexual minorities, for example, or they want to see better environmental standards, or they want to see better working conditions.”
Under the current regime of Xi Jinping, Diana warned these people’s voices are repressed. Since witnessing the color revolutions in Eastern Europe during the 2000s, when civil society became powerful and challenged the state, the Chinese state has been afraid of grassroots organizing, which has led to a clampdown on these voices in civil society.
Looking ahead, Diana identified young women and sexual minorities as crucial populations to watch in China. She elaborated that young women can be vanguards of social change, especially when one looks at how many anti-COVID lockdown protests were led by young women who were also chanting slogans like “down with the patriarchy”. As many young people do not currently see themselves represented by their leaders, she suggested that the Chinese government “needs change in terms of hearing the voices of young people”.
Reflecting on changes in China over the past decade, Iza expressed heightened concern over uncertainty, as “China today is more unpredictable than China [from] five or ten years ago… I think increasingly the entropy is higher and higher both domestically and internationally.”
Diana noted the divergence from expectations a decade ago when many believed Xi Jinping would usher in a more liberal era. Instead, “China today is a lot less liberal politically, arguably economically as well. Also, it is China that is standing up and says no to the West a lot.”
As the multifaceted state-society relationship in China continues to evolve, it remains to be seen how government repression, uncertainty, and global events will shape the country's political landscape.
* LGBT: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender. We are using this term as it is currently widely used in human rights conversations on sexual orientation and gender identity in many parts of the world, and we would wish it to be read as inclusive of other cultural concepts, contemporary or historical, to express sexuality and gender, intersex and gender non-conforming identities.
Diana Fu and Iza Ding attended the Salzburg Global Pathways to Peace Initiative titled “Crossing New Rivers by Feeling the Stones? Aspirations, Expectations, and China's Role in the 21st Century” from February 18 to 21, 2024. This program was a forward-looking opportunity to debate and understand the future of global engagement with a rising China. The forum assembled an intergenerational, international, and interdisciplinary group from government, the private sector, and civil society to engage in off-the-record conversations to evaluate sources of misunderstanding between China and the globe, to explore state and non-state mechanisms through which to productively engage China, and to identify risk-mitigating pathways.
Hugh Verrier delivers the tenth annual Lloyd N. Cutler Lecture on the Rule of Law
On February 9, 2024, friends and Fellows of Salzburg Global Seminar, including the 2024 cohort of Cutler Fellows - 55 of the brightest US students of international law - gathered at the Embassy of Austria in Washington, DC for the tenth Lloyd N. Cutler Lecture on the Rule of Law.
The keynote of the evening was Hugh Verrier, currently a Partner and formerly the Chair of White & Case LLP, whose address, "Advancing the Rule of Law: Finding the Riches Hidden in an Inch", was a thought-provoking look at what a career in private international law can be. Throughout the lecture and ensuing Q&A moderated by Martin Weiss, President and CEO of Salzburg Global Seminar, Verrier spoke candidly, often addressing the aspiring law professionals in the room, reflecting on times in his own career when he was faced with decisions that directly advanced or hurt global rule of law.
Verrier spent much of his 40 years at White & Case career overseas in Indonesia, Turkey, and Russia. In 2007, Verrier stepped into the role of Chair of the global firm, directing strategy and operations at its 44 offices in 30 countries around the world. Then, in 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine.
In 2022, he led White & Case in the decision to close their Moscow office: “This was done voluntarily, although for many, western sanctions would have hampered or eliminated their ability to function. It was provoked by moral outrage as well as a fierce outcry against Putin’s invasion, not only by employees of those businesses but also by their clients, and activists too.” He began his lecture posing a question, “Did the withdrawal of Western businesses from Russia advance or hurt the rule of law?”
To answer the question, Verrier brought the audience along on a journey starting in 1962, the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The crisis instilled in Hugh an existential fear which, combined with intellectual curiosity, inspired his career path. “I tell you this because I want you to know that you’re not alone in fearing for the future, and those fears are real – not just the fear of nuclear war, but the effects of climate change, the rise of autocratic rulers, and conventional war too, which just won’t go away. Those fears will shape your life, as they have mine” said Verrier, speaking to the 2024 Cutler Fellows.
Curiosity drove Verrier to accept an unpopular job: building a law office in post-soviet Russia. “I wanted that opportunity, because finally I would be able to look behind the curtain. And not just look, but live and understand,” Verrier recalled. Many challenges, both foreseen and otherwise, arose in training lawyers and serving clients in Russia. But when Verrier left Moscow in 2007, he was confident that they had and would continue to advance the rule of law.
Verrier poignantly returned to the original question posed, “This was an excruciating decision to take. To me, it felt– metaphorically speaking – like we had unleashed those missiles that have haunted me all my life. And so, do I believe that we advanced the rule of law? No. We destroyed it.”
Nevertheless, he stated, “I haven’t lost hope that one day Russia will correct its course – things have a strange way of changing quickly in that country, and Russians know it – they’re waiting for it too. Russians will pick up where they left off, drawing lessons from the experience and knowhow acquired in the thirty years of liberal society. But let’s hope that is not too far off.”
Verrier emphasized that a career in private law firms is not a career without public service, exemplified by the firm’s commitment to their pro bono practice which extended into Russian operations. Verrier stated, “Pro bono is not just something we do to atone for our client service; rather, it helps us define who we want to be and the role we must play in society.” In addition to human rights cases, Verrier spoke passionately about White & Case’s support of legal education through partnering with the Jessup Competition and collaborating with the Kingdom of Bhutan to establish the country’s first law school.
In an apt conclusion, Verrier addressed the students of law in attendance with a quote from Austrian novelist Robert Musil, “‘It’s easy to think in miles when you have no idea what riches can be hidden in an inch.’ Please remember that opportunities to make a difference may come up in small, unexpected ways, and if you are alert to them and curious to pursue those opportunities, you may find you can achieve extraordinary things you would otherwise miss. These are the unexpected riches hidden in an inch.”
The Cutler Lecture is held under the auspices of the Lloyd N. Cutler Center for the Rule of Law. The lecture series was started by Salzburg Global Seminar in 2009 to honor the life and work of Lloyd N. Cutler, former White House Counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton and long-time Chair of Salzburg Global’s Board of Directors.
Salzburg Global Fellow Kelsey Dalrymple offers a critique of current practices around social emotional learning in education in emergency settings
Children make up 41% of the world’s displaced population, and an estimated 224 million crisis-affected school-age children require education support. Children affected by crisis and displacement often suffer extreme trauma and can become trapped in a cycle of displacement and poverty for decades. Education in emergencies (EiE) practitioners and Child Protection in Emergencies (CPiE) actors believe social emotional learning (SEL) could promote both psychological wellbeing and academic achievement in crisis and displacement contexts.
SEL has been explicitly linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and specifically Goal 4: to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. While actors like the Education Cannot Wait fund argue that education in general is foundational to achieving all other SDGs, UNESCO argues that supporting students to develop skills in emotional resiliency and prosocial behaviors are necessary for positive outcomes at the individual level, and also promotes human flourishing, which is critical for achieving the other SDGs. In fact, UNESCO’s Education 2030 Agenda specifically underlines the importance of aligning social and emotional capabilities with education for peace and sustainable development, so as to help prepare young people to meet major environmental, economic, and social challenges. Additionally, the NISSEM network maintains that SEL is an important contributor to positive behavioral change, which is a necessary condition to achieve greater social cohesion and respect for peace, cultural diversity, and human rights. As such, significant monetary and human resources have been invested in SEL for displaced and crisis-affected communities, with even more funds pledged to develop SEL measurement tools and generate programmatic evidence.
However, qualitative interviews conducted between 2020 - 2022 with over 50 EiE and CPiE practitioners, scholars, and donors working on SEL at the global level, and specifically the East Africa region, reveal a number of discrepancies between the global sustainability agenda and the reality of SEL programming. For example, respondents expressed that their SEL work largely aims to help develop skills and competencies, as well as effect behavior change and improve wellbeing, at the individual level. While some practitioners and scholars have argued that SEL has the potential to address key drivers of societal conflict and other factors that lead to situations of violence and displacement, no respondent linked their SEL programming to larger efforts of conflict-prevention, peace-building, or social cohesion that could help to prevent future crises and displacement.
Additionally, the intention behind many SEL initiatives is to improve learners’ psychosocial wellbeing by supporting them to cope with stress and trauma, and to thrive in situations of crisis and displacement. However, while critical thinking skills were among the competencies that these SEL initiatives aim to support learners to develop, no respondent reported that their SEL programming encouraged displaced learners to critically reflect on their rights or to challenge their situations of displacement. There is a clear absence of any rhetoric or content related to social or restorative justice throughout SEL programming with displaced and crisis-affected learners.
Finally, there appears to be promising efforts by EiE and CPiE actors to help integrate SEL into national education systems. However, no respondent reported that their engagement with government actors on SEL included conversations related to the national integration of refugee and displaced students. While many actors are engaging with Ministries of Education in processes to develop contextually-relevant SEL frameworks, the query of “relevant for who?” is not being considered; government enthusiasm for SEL appears to apply mostly to national students and not the displaced or crisis-affected students they are hosting.
These findings indicate that while SEL is often theoretically linked to the global sustainability agenda, in practice, EiE and CPiE actors are not actually designing and delivering SEL activities with sustainability in mind. This is not surprising as humanitarian initiatives for displacement and crisis contexts were never supposed to be sustainable; they were always intended to be short-term solutions to short-term situations. However, more and more humanitarian situations are becoming protracted, resulting in millions of people languishing in crisis and displacement for decades. As education and protection are human rights, bolstered by the global sustainability agenda, EiE and CPiE actors are mandated to continually search for resources to sustain their programming, thereby feeding into this unsustainable humanitarian system. As SEL has become a highly popular trend in both sectors, receiving immense amounts of funding and resources, it is critical to reflect on its impact and function. If EiE and CPiE actors: 1) do not prioritize the inclusion of displaced and crisis-affected individuals into national systems when engaging with government actors on SEL, and 2) if SEL activities continue to focus on building individual skills without linking them to larger concepts of social justice and social cohesion, thereby supporting children and adults to cope with their situations of displacement rather than to break free from them, one must beg the question: is SEL simply sustaining the unsustainable?
Kelsey A. Dalrymple has nearly 15 years of experience in the fields of education and humanitarian response. She spent three years as an international classroom teacher and since then has worked as an Education in Emergencies Specialist. Kelsey has worked in various humanitarian contexts serving in coordination, research, program management, project director, technical advisor, and sector-lead roles. She specializes in: teacher training, early childhood development, social-emotional learning, play-based learning, girls’ education, and youth empowerment. She is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she is critically examining the use of social emotional learning with refugee and crisis-affected communities. Her research is rooted in the fields of Comparative and International Education, Anthropology, and Education in Emergencies and she utilizes qualitative, critical, ethnographic, and visual methodologies.
Salzburg Global Fellow Emmanuelle Andrès analyzes how writer Toni Morrison's novels deconstruct the artificial borders produced by racism
This op-ed was written by Emmanuelle Andrès, who attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program "Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism" from September 19 to 23, 2023.
The individual artist is by nature a questioner and a critic: that’s what she does. Her questions and criticism are her work, and she is frequently in conflict with the status quo. But the artist can’t help that; if she is to have any integrity at all in her art, she can’t help it.
Toni Morrison, The Individual Artist in "The Source of Self-Regard", 2019
Throughout her writing career, Toni Morrison consistently asked ominous questions from her readers about identity, community, otherness, and the meaning of “home” in the face of mass movement, division, racism, and war; she addressed both actual borders and borders of the mind in her fiction and nonfiction. One of the main “tasks” of literature, theater, and cinema is precisely to make sure that the edge, the fence “where the most interesting things always happen” is the creative, real-imaginary locus for a reckoning. By telling stories that were often silenced or erased from public discourse, if not altogether rejected or banned*, Toni Morrison always chose to reckon with borders, vantage points from which to delve into the complexities of the human psyche and her global readers’ moral imaginations. Today, her literary legacy of border crossing - between the mythical and the real, the profane and the sacred, male and female subjects, black and white, north and south, past and present - endures, helping her readers come to an understanding of the world and its moral inhabitants.
As a fiction writer and a critic, not only was Toni Morrison interested in border crossing, but she also strove to enact border erasure in her writing process: wanting the reader to ask herself or himself other questions than what gender or race the characters or narrators were (or any set feature that would limit the reader’s imaginary scope); she sought out the most intriguing elements in the world of fiction she most enjoyed, while she purposely chose to withhold set identifying features in her own fiction, preferring fluid, shifting boundaries, leaving the gates of fiction partially open, and “begging for entrance”. Let me give but one example, drawn from the very first sentences of "Paradise" (1997): “They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time." While these lines instantly caused, and are still causing, a lot of ink to flow, leading too many readers to limit their reading to finding clues as to who the “white girl” was, the novel urges the reader to ponder and question this very need**, focusing instead on the moral scandal of the Ruby men’s murderous expedition, who are unnamed at this stage and identified by their filiation only. In "Paradise", Morrison wanted to “de-fang and theatricalize race, signaling how moveable and hopelessly meaningless the construct was”. By way of the very first sentence of the novel, she asked - What would a world where gender-race-class signifiers were made invisible or pushed back, to make way for our understanding as moral inhabitants of this world – be like? How does art help to resist and erase societal borders? How does it help us reach out to those whom Toni Morrison does not identify as others, but as “versions of ourselves”? Indeed, “Beloved”, the ultimate “other”/border character in Toni Morrison’s fiction, cannot be “claimed”; she is “disremembered” and unaccounted for until the reader reaches the moral understanding of the traumatic memory she embodies.
Novelists (Edwidge Danticat, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Yaa Gyasi, Colson Whitehead, Louise Erdrich, Tommy Orange), poets (Amanda Gorman, Brandy Nālani McDougall), filmmakers (Spike Lee, Barry Jenkins, Ava DuVernay, Jordan Peele) and cultural thinkers (Ta-Nehisi Coates, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Nicole Hannah Jones) are putting their lives on the line to keep bringing their stories to us, bearing the brunt of exclusionary national or state politics; reading literature that interrogates norms, as well as the old, new, and ongoing sources of oppression, involves taking a stance on the “knowing” side of the border. This represents the “knowing so deep”, as Morrison wrote in one of her most poignant essays on, and dedicated to, black women; Cheryl Wall referred to it as “worrying the line", alluding to the discontinuity that makes up African American women’s literary heritage. On the opposite side of the time border/fence, the future unfolds. If it takes a reckoning of the past to glimpse a future, as the “bridge” infrastructure of Yaa Gyasi’s "Homegoing" (2017) most aptly enacts, in the wake of "Songof Solomon" (1977) and "Beloved" (1987), then today’s African American literature and cinema can be a moral imagination roadmap toward a more knowing, understanding society.*** More than ever, stories matter, not only because they allow us to glimpse and comprehend the realities of others, but also because they make us better “moral inhabitants of the globe”.
*Morrison’s very first novel "The Bluest Eye", as well as some of her subsequent novels, have disappeared from many high school curriculums, following religion-grounded protests across the United States.
**Like all the beginnings of Morrison’s novels, the first sentence is a plunge into the story with no threshold, though a lot is to be learned from these two sentences. In "Paradise", she took on the history of an all-black town following the American Civil War; by reversing the racial hierarchies that prevailed at the time, she set out to “reconfigure blackness”, thereby deconstructing the artificial borders produced by racism.
***In the realm of African American cinema, one may think of Dee Rees’s "Pariah" (2011) and "Mudbound" (2017), Spike Lee’s "BlackKklansman" (2018), Jordan Peele’s "Get Out" (2017) and "Us" (2019), Ava DuVernay’s miniseries "When They See Us" (2019) or Barry Jenkins’ "Underground Railroad" (2021), to name but a few recent films/series that explore different kinds and layers of borders.
Emmanuelle Andrès is an associate professor of American studies in the department of applied foreign languages at La Rochelle University in France. After working on her novels for many years, she has been recently involved with all intersecting aspects of her extensive writing, by way of the Toni Morrison Papers at Princeton University.
Emmanuelle attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program on “Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism” from September 19-23, 2023. The 2023 Salzburg Global American Studies Program focused on the contestations and renegotiations of boundaries beyond the nation-state, and how they are changing the representation of democratic pluralism.
African perspectives on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic about vaccine procurement
From syringes to storage facilities, vials to funding strategies, every detail matters in a pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the inequalities in healthcare around the world and the pressing need to address them before the next pandemic. This begins with identifying the challenges that low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) faced during the pandemic. During a health program on "Better Preparedness for the Next Pandemic: Developing Vaccine Access Models with Low- and Middle-income Countries", Salzburg Global Fellows Henry Mwebesa and Patrick Amoth elaborated on the experiences of two African countries and the lessons the world can learn from this.
Securing vaccines was a pressing priority for all, but for many African countries, it was a long and delayed process layered with obstacles. After initially receiving one million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in March 2021, Dr. Henry Mwebesa, Director of General Health Services at the Ministry of Health of Uganda, revealed that it took another three months for the next batch of vaccines to arrive. As the pandemic progressed and Uganda received more philanthropic funds, securing vaccines in time remained difficult, as “we made orders, but they did not supply in time,” Henry recalled. To make matters worse, rigid contractual terms forced upon LMICs made it impossible for them to penalize untimely deliveries.
Lacking bargaining power and the financial means to access vaccines, most of the vaccines for LMICs came from donations. However, they often came with a very short shelf life and did not consider the needs of LMICs. Patrick Amoth, Director General for Health at the Ministry of Health in Kenya, alluded to one donation where the packaging was so voluminous, that it overwhelmed the storage capacity at the national vaccine depot and crowded out routine vaccinations. Patrick referred to this as “dumping vaccines”. LMICs often receive vaccines that are near expiration, which inadvertently creates more burdens than benefits, as the cost of destroying these vaccines is borne by LMICs.
Equitable access to vaccines will be crucial in the next pandemic. Reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic, Henry believes that COVAX has the potential to be strengthened into a more equitable arrangement for the future. During the pandemic, the price for vaccines rocketed as high-income countries hoarded doses. COVAX should continue to pool vaccines, but Henry added that the key was to ensure adequate stock levels and strengthen COVAX as an “arbiter” and a “more genuine engine”.
A strengthened COVAX would also efficiently allocate vaccines, allowing individual countries to apply and buy from the pooled stock according to their own needs. This corresponds with Patrick’s takeaway that “requests should actually come from the receiving countries”. Patrick explained, “we should be able to customize based on our own individual context”. LMICs differ significantly in infrastructure, and it is necessary to develop solutions adapted to the regional needs and capacities of LMICs.
Despite facing challenges in vaccine access, African countries fared better against COVID-19 than the world expected. Learning from the HIV pandemic in the 80s and 90s, Kenya institutionalized “home-based care” where people who were not severely ill were treated at home by professional healthcare providers and community health workers. “This platform worked very well during the pandemic,” Patrick explained, “not on a single day was our healthcare system stretched to the limit”. The solidarity and communal support demonstrated by Kenyans is a testament to a recurring message of the program, the need for a bottom-up approach. As has been the case in COVID-19, when one region cannot gain access to healthcare, every country is at risk. Such is the importance of global solidarity in the next pandemic. As Patrick concludes, “No one should be left behind.”
The Salzburg Global Fellows featured in this article attended the Salzburg Global Health and Health Care Innovation program "Better Preparedness for the Next Pandemic: Developing Vaccine Access Models with Low- and Middle-income Countries" from March 11 to 16, 2024. This program convened nearly thirty Fellows, including healthcare practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and representatives from health ministries in several African countries, for crucial discussions on access to suitable and affordable vaccines in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Central to the discussions was a focus on understanding end-user needs and constraints to inform the design of a new model for multilateral vaccine procurement.