The Idea of “One Health”; Inter-species Dialogue and Narrative Possibilities

Abstract

“One Health” has emerged as a novel paradigm addressing issues of human health in terms of its linkages with health of other species in the planet. The most critical element in this paradigm is the acceptance of the fact that there is a strong interrelation between human health and health of other species and the relationship need not always be viewed from an anthropocentric perspective. Others also required to be factored in. There, however, remains the issue of  conceptualizing non-human animal and plant health from the perspective of humans not because of not recognition of its importance  but because of the  what could be called the problem of  inter species intelligibility: an issue of cognitive non-commensurability. This is partly due to the special ways in which species constitute their speech and cognitive universe and partly, in this case due also to the inability of humans to understand. The way out of this impasse, as understood in this paper, is to innovate narrative frameworks so as to enable non-human, i.e., animal and plants, voices to find frames to enter into what has been a restrictive and anthropocentric narrative universe so far.