Researching ’others'

The Conference Declaration at the end of the 17th World Rural Health Conference 2021, hosted virtually from Bangladesh, calls for research that is guided by communities to foster and enhance rural services, noting that for rural communities there should be ‘nothing about us, without us’ . This is an important call that Rural and Remote Health should consider seriously. The slogan ‘nothing about us, without us’, rendered from the Latin nihil de nobis, sine nobis, apparently originated in central European politics and demands that no policy should be decided without the participation of people who are or will be affected by a policy or action . It has been used widely by different activist groups to campaign for a place at the decision-making table, and in essence lies behind rural-proofing, a concept with which readers of this journal are likely to be familiar.