How do you define “white saviorism?”

According to Themrise Khan, white saviorism is “imprinted psychologically in the minds of anyone who wants to be a saviour, anyone who thinks that they are superior to others and thinks that it is only them who can bring betterment into the lives of others.”

This phenomenon often manifests in the global health system when researchers, scientists, and even NGO staff and volunteers from the Global North parachute into the Global South, attempting to “save” people without genuinely collaborating with them.

In simpler terms, white saviorism is “the idea of how the white industrialised Western world wants to save the non-Western marginalised world,” Khan said.

Khan, a Pakistani independent development professional and researcher with nearly 30 years of experience in international development, aid effectiveness, gender, and global migration, recently discussed this topic on the Dialogues segment of the Global Health Matters podcast with Dr. Garry Aslanyan.

Khan said that little to no progress has been made in the decolonization of healthcare, largely due to the pervasive influence of white saviorism. She believes the only way forward is to “burn it all down” and start afresh, emphasizing the need for a complete overhaul of the system.

Khan is also the co-editor of the book Preventing the next pandemic, White Saviorism in International Development: Theories, Practices and Lived Experiences. In both the book and the podcast, she provides specific examples of how white saviorism impacts autonomy, perpetuates global power imbalances, and shapes race relations.

One striking example she shared involved visits from white Westerners to her community to oversee projects they had funded.

“The white foreigner who had all the money, who was coming in with the money to make sure that everything was going well so they could continue getting the money, was the one who was feted like royalty. That really stuck out for me in terms of how international development as a profession has created this dynamic of royalty versus the people,” Khan said.

So, is there hope for change?

While Khan describes herself as inherently pessimistic, she explained that her call to “burn it all down” is not entirely negative. On the contrary, she believes that embracing this concept allows us to “rebuild properly again, so there is hope in that.”

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Image Credits: TDR | Global Health Matters Podcast.