Lo que avanza y lo que resiste: una lectura cultural y decolonial de las implicancias epistemológicas de la Estrategia Mundial sobre Medicina Tradicional 2025-2034 de la OMS

Thabata Cristina Rosa Negrete; Helena Carla Gonçalo Ferreira; Antonio Rodrigues Ferreira Júnior

doi:10.18294/sc.2026.6230

What advances and what resists: A cultural and decolonial reading of the epistemological implications of the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025-2034

Thabata Cristina Rosa Negrete Master’s degree in Public Health. PhD candidate in Public Health, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, Brazil. , Helena Carla Gonçalo Ferreira PhD in Cultural Studies. Researcher, Center for Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal. , Antonio Rodrigues Ferreira Júnior PhD in Public Health. Professor, Universidade Estadual do Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil.

Received: 31 March 2026, Accepted: 9 September 2026, Published: 23 September 2026

https://doi.org/10.18294/sc.2026.6230

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Abstract

Although the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034 represents an undeniable political advance in global health, this theoretical essay offers a critical reading of the document’s epistemological implications from the perspectives of cultural studies and decolonial thought. It argues that the Strategy operates through two contradictory registers: one that recognizes epistemic diversity and the rights of traditional knowledge holders, and another of capture, which retains biomedical evidence as the universal arbiter of legitimacy and expands standardization instruments that domesticate the very forms of knowledge it seeks to include. Drawing on cultural studies and decolonial thought, the essay critically examines the Strategy’s objectives in order to articulate an alternative political horizon and identify the tensions that remain unresolved. Rivera Cusicanqui’s notion of ch’ixi coexistence is proposed as an alternative to the assimilationist model of integration and as a stance for researchers and policymakers, which we term “epistemologically responsible engagement.” The essay concludes that health equity depends on a shared horizon capable of sustaining the complexity of systems of care without imposing hierarchies among them.

Keywords: Traditional Medicine, Complementary Therapies, Health Policy, Epistemology, Culture

Categories: Epistemology, Policies, Healthcare models

Funding: Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior | 001

Full-text of the article is available for this language: Español.

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