Introduction

This chapter introduces the notion of power as it relates to global health. Starting with reflections from the doctoral work conducted by the author in South Africa, it provides a very brief introduction to definitions of global health, and the need to move towards global health practice to be more in line with the voiced needs of everyday citizens. It presents an overview of selected power frameworks applicable to global health scholars, and introduces the matrix of domination, developed by Patricia Hill Collins as an ideal method to guide the analysis of power in the field. It presents an adapted matrix tailored to the global health context within a new visual model to help guide the application of this approach in future analyses. It also provides brief introductions to remaining chapters in this book.