Category Archives: News

Delivering Health: Midwifery and Development in Mexico takes a consciously focused approach at examining how in a state of “entrenched social inequalities, structural failures, and legacies of misogyny and colonialism”, (Dixon 2020: 25) midwives take diverse yet interconnected approaches at addressing … Continue reading →

Irma’s story serves as a stark reminder of the intersectional oppression and systemic violence that profoundly impact women’s reproductive healthcare, especially those in marginalized rural areas. The narrative powerfully captures the intricate web of social, historical, and infrastructural factors that … Continue reading →

Something that really caught my eye in Dixon’s piece was the slippage between “professional” and “traditional” as it relates to midwifery practices. From the very get-go, Dixon presents what seems to lean towards a generational divide: “if you want traditional … Continue reading →

I was struck by the forced duality of midwifery in Mexico between working with the state and against it and its abusive practices. As demonstrated in the introduction and more particularly in chapter 3, this position places them in a delicate in-betweenness: people … Continue reading →

The academy’s shift from “Black Lives Matter” to “#OurLivesMatter” reflects a broader cultural tendency to generalize difficulties, overshadowing focus on the specific injustices faced by Black communities. This immediately made me understand that the stark mismatch between the academy’s punishing … Continue reading →

Liberal academic institutions frequently employ terms such as people of color (POC) in an attempt to acknowledge the structural racism, violence, and oppression towards racialized, ethnicized, and minoritized non-white populations. Yet, such terms and discourse dilutes the innately anti-black racism … Continue reading →

  As I read the introductory chapter, I am drawn to the emphasis on the idea of ‘winning.’ Specifically, when Shange explains how the idea of winning is the ‘dominant logic of social justice work,’ as she provides the context … Continue reading →

In the introductory chapter, the author distinguishes between performativity and having an actual progressive narrative. This was introduced in a school context (high school named Robeson Justice Academy). Although this academy’s mission is to achieve racial equity in the school … Continue reading →

“While the #OurLivesMatter photo that opens this chapter issues from the same impulse to preserve Black life, it redirects the rage of young people to the realm of the doable… Progressive Dystopia maps the tension between these two tenses of victory, and … Continue reading →

I was particularly struck by the author’s conceptualization of Blackness as a “place” that can be geographically defined but also situated in time. On page 14 she writes that “Blackness is perpetually out of place and constantly running out of time.” She very poetically describes … Continue reading →

In “Exceptional Violence”, Deborah Thomas describes how colonialism and slavery play part in the current violence against Jamaican people. What these 2 chapters reminded me of is also the violence against indigenous people. Indigenous people also had very unfortunate history … Continue reading →

In Exceptional Violence, Thomas actively confronts and advocates for the relevance of culture to “to demonstrate that violence generally is not a cultural phenomenon but an effect of class formation, a process that is immanently racialized and gendered” (2011: 4). … Continue reading →

Similarly to Mandy, I found Thomas’s use of “reparations” as a “framework for thinking” to be particularly interesting. I don’t know if it’s more that I expect quantitative data/research mindsets more (perhaps because of my computer science background) but when I … Continue reading →

This reading and discussion about reparations bring to mind a dialogue I had in a course with Dr. McKinson. We delved into how young Jamaican men engage in lottery scamming as a form of self-styled reparations in response to poverty. … Continue reading →

I was absolutely struck by Thomas’ use of reparations as a framework for thinking through the social conditions that she witnesses. I had to read the paragraph that introduced it a few times, as I initially struggled to conceive of how … Continue reading →

I was very much surprised at the playfulness and diversity of Bernard’s exercises, although I do have to say maths aren’t my strongest suit. I particularly enjoyed his explanation of what cultural domain analysis is, and the example he uses. I had already … Continue reading →