Abstract
Addressing zoonotic diseases often calls for collaborative efforts across health and agriculture sectors to find ways to control or eliminate these pathogens. However, existing techno-scientific and biomedical interventions frequently fall short given the siloed nature of their knowledge and implementation, compounded by the overall lack of consideration for socio-ecological factors and interactions that contribute to disease transmission. Moreover, even when established socio-ecological models are applied to zoonoses, they are still unable to capture the nuanced power structures (i.e., gender, colonialism and anthropocentrism) that drive pathogenicity. Thus, this paper provides a critical reorientation of socio-ecological approaches by integrating foundational ideas from gender studies and decolonial thought that recognize the influence of power and the many ways power shapes and is formed in zoonotic situations. By starting from the marginalized human/nonhuman agencies and the relations that constitute them, addressing the colonial pasts and presences in their contexts, and applying a more topological perspective to these relations, we develop and apply this critical socio-ecological approach to the case of Taenia solium and emphasize how it transcends siloed One Health initiatives driven by anthropocentric medical approaches, as well as intersects with current Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programs that focus mainly on human sanitation within Northern Uganda’s smallholder pig farming communities. Through this re-framing, we open space for a more nuanced One Health-WASH praxis with potential for collaborative and deeply transformative outcomes.