Robert Huish

Ph.D.   Simon Fraser University
M.A.  Queen’s University

B.A. (Hons.) Queen’s University

Phone: (902) 494-2979   
E-mail: huish@dal.ca

Office: 307A Henry Hicks Academic Administration Building

Office Hours: Contact Department

Research Interests:
(global health; sport & development; pedagogies of activism)

My research interests explore ways in which comprehensive development can work to reduce gross inequities and ease suffering in vulnerable communities.  I mostly focus on global health inequity, particularly when it comes to the sustainability of national public health services in the global South, and the role of village health worker education in improving outcomes.  Global health is a broad and interdisciplinary subject.  When it comes to questions of inequity, health, human rights, and accessibility to essential services I believe that the methods and practices we use in International Development Studies are right on the mark. Not only can we further our understanding of the structural impacts from neoliberal globalization, but we may move dialogue closer to solutions for global health equity.
I am currently working on issues related to global health ethics, how medical education acts as a determinant of global health inequality and dynamics of Cuban Medical Internationalism.  Aside from my global health focus I have also taken on projects about the role of pedagogy of activism and the role of sport in Cuban Internationalism within comprehensive development frameworks. At the moment I am currently working on projects in the following areas:
• Cuba’s sport & development programs. 
• Dynamics of teaching activism.
• Community-based health services: A comparison between Cuba & Maharashtra.
• The challenges of tuberculosis in Canada’s North.
I welcome contact from colleagues and graduate students who are interested in pursuing research in these areas.

Teaching:
My teaching interests include topics on global health, poverty and human rights, structural impacts of neoliberal globalization, and methods of activism.
All the courses that I currently teach include an activist component that affords students the chance to passionately engage with issues of inequity and social justice.  Activism is not a mere accident of dissent that spills out on to the streets. Rather, it is a communication skill that can be mastered through careful study to promote grassroots democracy that can lead to broad social change.
 As Howard Zinn put it, “change does not come as one cataclysmic moment but as an endless succession of surprises…Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can quietly become a power no government can suppress, a power that can transform the world.”
For more on this approach, check out this interview with Ana Maria Teremonti on CBC’s The Current:
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2012/05/30/political-engagement-101-youth-activism/
Recent Publications:
Books
Huish, Robert. (in press, 2012) “Where no doctor has gone before: Cuba’s
place in the global health landscape.” Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Refereed Journal Articles
Huish, Robert, & Simon Darnell (2012). “Solidarity, counter-hegemony and development: Exploring Cuba’s sport-based internationalism. Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. 36(71), 139 – 164.

Huish, Robert (2012). “The Ethical Challenges of Medical Students on International Health Electives.”  Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education. 2(1).  1-19.

Huish, Robert (2011). Punching Above its Weight: Cuba’s use of sport for South-South solidarity. Third World Quarterly 32(3). 417 – 433.

Huish, Robert and W. George Lovell (2010). Bajo los volcanes.
Mesoamerica. 52. 87 – 110.

Spiegel, Jerry and Robert Huish (2009). Canadian Foreign Aid for Global
Health: Human Security Opportunity Lost. Canadian Foreign Policy. 15(3) 60 – 84.

Huish, Robert and John M. Kirk (2009) Cuban Medical Internationalism in
Africa: The Threat 
of a Dangerous Example. The Latin Americanist. 53(3) 125  - 139.

Huish, Robert (2009). How Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine
challenges the Ethics of Physician Migration. Social Science and Medicine. 69(3) 301 – 304.

Parkes Margot, Spiegel Jerry, Breilh Jaime, Cabarcas Fabio, Huish
Robert, Yassi Annalee. (2009) Promoting the 
health of marginalized populations in Ecuador through international collaboration and educational innovations Bulletin of the World Health Organisation.  87(4), 312 – 319.

Huish, Robert. (2008). Human security and food security in geographic
study: Knowledge 
translation, concepts and elusive theory.  Geography Compass. 2(5) 1386 – 1403.

Huish, Robert (2008).  Going where no doctor has gone before:  The role
of Cuba's Latin American School of Medicine in meeting the needs of some of the world's most vulnerable populations. Public Health. 122(6) 552- 557.  (WHO International Joint Special Issue, “Towards a Scaling-up of education for health workers.”)

Huish, Robert & Jerry Spiegel. (2008). Integrating health and human
security into foreign 
policy: Cuba’s surprising success. International Journal of Cuban Studies. 1(1) 1 – 13.

Huish, Robert and John M. Kirk (2007). Cuban Medical Internationalism:
the development of the Latin  
American School of Medicine and human-resource-based healthcare provision. Latin American Perspectives. 34(6) 77 - 92.

Book Chapters:
Evert, Jessica, Robert Huish, Gary Heit, Scott Loeliger, Evaleen Jones,
Steve Schmidbauer (2011) Global Health Ethics. Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics. Judy Iles & Barbara Sahakian, (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics. New York: Oxford University Press.

Flueret, Sébastien, Anne Cécile Hoyez, Robert Huish, Damian Collins
(2011). Regards croisés sur les geographies de la santé Anglophone et Francophone,  in Géographie de la Sante. Un Autre Panorama. Paris: Press Economica-Anthropos.

Spiegel, Jerry, Robert Huish, Klaudia Dmitrienko, Andrea A. Cortinois
(2008). Canadian and Australian Health Aid, in Hanssonm Emily et. al. (eds.) Global Health Watch 2. London: Zed Books. 317 – 333.

Current courses:
 

INTD2002  (Intro to Development II: Facing Structures of Neoliberal
Globalization with Student Action); 


INTD3003  (Development and Activism: Methods of Manifestation,
Organization and Dissent); 


INTD3115  (Global Health in the 21st Century); 

INTD4006 (Poverty and Human Rights);
INTD3107XY  (Experiential learning in Canada);