Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, Book Talk

In the new book Inflamed, renowned political economist and New York Times bestselling author Raj Patel teams up with physician Rupa Marya to offer a radical new cure: the deep medicine of decolonization. Decolonizing heals what has been divided, reestablishing our relationships with the Earth and one another. Combining the latest scientific research on globalization with Marya’s stories of her work in marginalized communities and the wisdom of Indigenous groups, Inflamed points the way toward a deep medicine that has the potential to heal not only our bodies, but the world. Join EcoFarm, Rupa, and Raj to mark the release of Inflamed.

Rupa Marya is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco in the Division of Hospital Medicine with a focus on Social Medicine. She is a co-founder of the Do No Harm Coalition, a group of healthcare workers committed to changing social structures that make health impossible for different groups of people. Through her work with the coalition, she has worked on the health impacts of police violence specifically and the health legacies of colonialism globally. In 2016, she assisted with medical response at Standing Rock amidst state violence towards indigenous people protecting their sovereign land in the face of the Dakota Access Pipeline. At the invitation of Lakota elders, she is helping to develop a clinic to decolonize food and medicine in Lakota territory to serve the indigenous communities, the Mni Wiconi Health Clinic and Farm. As a physician in partnership with regenerative farmer Benjamin Fahrer, Rupa has been studying how regenerative farming practices directly impacts human health through the connections between the respective microbiota of the gut and soil. In addition to her work in medicine and writing, Rupa is the composer and front-woman for Rupa and the April Fishes, a polyglot band who has traveled to over 29 countries sharing musical soundscapes of building an alternative world that is beautiful, inspiring, deep and empowering.

 

Raj Patel is a Research Professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs, a professor in the University’s department of nutrition, and a Research Associate at Rhodes University, South Africa. He is the author of Stuffed and Starved, the New York Times bestselling The Value of Nothing, and co-author of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. A James Beard Leadership Award winner, he is completing a film on the global food system, and is a leading thinker and organizer around the Green New Deal. He serves on the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, and has advised governments on causes and solutions to crises of sustainability worldwide.