Birthing Black Mothers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer C. Nash
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Critique ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Michelle Obama ◽  
Political Category ◽  
Black Life ◽  
A Site ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Black Motherhood

In Birthing Black Mothers Black feminist theorist Jennifer C. Nash examines how the figure of the “Black mother” has become a powerful political category. “Mothering while Black” has become synonymous with crisis as well as a site of cultural interest, empathy, fascination, and support. Cast as suffering and traumatized by their proximity to Black death—especially through medical racism and state-sanctioned police violence—Black mothers are often rendered as one-dimensional symbols of tragic heroism. In contrast, Nash examines Black mothers’ self-representations and public performances of motherhood—including Black doulas and breastfeeding advocates alongside celebrities such as Beyoncé, Serena Williams, and Michelle Obama—that are not rooted in loss. Through cultural critique and in-depth interviews, Nash acknowledges the complexities of Black motherhood outside its use as political currency. Throughout, Nash imagines a Black feminist project that refuses the lure of locating the precarity of Black life in women and instead invites readers to theorize, organize, and dream into being new modes of Black motherhood.

scholarly journals From Mammy to Mommy: Michelle Obama and the Reclamation of Black Motherhood

Elements ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Querusio
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
Healthy Eating ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
First Lady ◽  
Feminist History ◽  
Michelle Obama ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
Black Motherhood

On November 21st, 2013, <em>Politico</em> Magazine published Michelle Cottle’s piece titled “Leaning Out: How Michelle Obama Became a Feminist Nightmare.” Cottle pinpoints several explanations for Obama’s degeneration into such a “nightmare,” including the First Lady proclaiming to be a “mom-in-chief” and focusing on healthy eating. Melissa Harris-Perry, correspondent for MSNBC, retaliated quickly and criticized Cottle for her remarks, insisting that she should better study her black feminist history. This article argues that Cottle is oblivious to Obama’s standpoint as a black woman, and that by embracing motherhood, Obama is doing what many black women have been prevented from doing throughout history. This article draws from both historical accounts of black women during slavery and modern constructions of black femininity to address Cottle’s claims.

scholarly journals Poetry as Praxis + “Illumination”: Toward an Epistemically Just Health Promotion for Resistance, Healing, and (Re)Imagination

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 20S-26S
Author(s):  
Ryan J. Petteway
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Health Promotion ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Black Feminist Theory ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
Creative Power ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
A Site

Health promotion is facing a most challenging future in the intersections of structural racism, COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), racialized police violence, and climate change. Now is a critical moment to ask how health promotion might become more responsive to and representative of people’s daily realities. Also how it can become a more inclusive partner in, and collaborative conduit of, knowledge—one capable of both informing intellects and transforming hearts. It needs to feel the pulse of the “fierce urgency of now,” and perhaps nothing can reveal this pulse more than the creative power of art—especially poetry. Drawing from critical and Black feminist theory, I use commentary in prose to conceptualize and call for an epistemically just health promotion guided by poetry as praxis—not just as method. I posit that, as praxis rooted in lived realities, poetry becomes experiential excavation and illumination; a practice of community, communion, and solidarity; a site and source of healing; and a space to create new narratives of health to forge new paths toward its promotion. I accordingly suggest a need to view and value poetry as a critical scholarship format to advance health promotion knowledge, discourse, and action toward a more humanized pursuit—and narrative—of health equity.

scholarly journals Birthing #blackboyjoy: Black Midwives Caring for Black Mothers of Black Boys During Pregnancy and Childbirth

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keisha L. Goode ◽  
Arielle Bernardin
Keyword(s):  
Black People ◽  
Professional Organizations ◽  
Black Boys ◽  
Reproductive Justice ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Psychosocial Experiences ◽  
Pregnancy And Childbirth ◽  
Black Life

Abstract Background Structural racism mediates all aspects of Black life. The medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth, and its detrimental impacts on Black birth, is well documented. The Black Lives Matter movement has elevated the national consciousness on all aspects of Black life, but significant attention has been directed toward the murder and dehumanization of Black men and boys. Black midwives, caring for Black people, using the Midwives Model of Care© which consistently demonstrates its efficacy and better outcomes for Black people, are uniquely positioned to witness the physical and psychosocial experiences of birthing Black boys in America. Methods Between 2011 and 2013, the first author conducted interviews with 22 Black midwives to understand their perceptions of, and experiences in, predominantly white midwifery education programs and professional organizations. Convenience and snowball sampling were used. This paper investigates previously unreported and unexamined data from the original study by focusing on the witness and insight of nine midwives who provided care for Black mothers of boys during pregnancy and childbirth. Findings The data presented three themes: It’s a Boy: On Restlessness and Complicated Uneasiness; Desensitization of Black Death; and, Physiological Impacts of Toxic Stress. Conclusions The findings demonstrate that caring for Black people must be simultaneously theorized and executed within an anti-racist, relationship-centered, reproductive justice framework. Black midwives are uniquely positioned to do this work. Greater attention, in practice and in research, is needed to investigate the birth experiences of Black mothers of boys.

scholarly journals Sustainable Lifestyles: Sites, Practices, and Policy

2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (12) ◽  
pp. 3011-3029 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stewart Barr ◽  
Gareth Shaw ◽  
Tim Coles
Keyword(s):  
Behaviour Change ◽  
Environmental Implications ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Sustainable Lifestyles ◽  
Environmental Practice ◽  
Environmentally Responsible ◽  
A Site ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Segmentation Models

Proenvironmental behaviour change remains a high priority for many governments and agencies and there are now numerous programmes aimed at encouraging citizens to adopt sustainable forms of living. However, although programmes for addressing behaviour change in and around the home are well developed, there has been significantly less attention paid to activities beyond this site of practice. This is despite the environmental implications of consumption choices for leisure, tourism, and work-related activities. Through focusing on sites of practice as a key framing device, this paper uses data from a series of in-depth interviews to identify three major challenges for academics and practitioners concerned with understanding and promoting more environmentally responsible behaviour. First, attention must shift beyond the home as a site of environmental practice to consider the ways in which individuals respond to exhortations towards ‘greener’ lifestyles in other high-consumption and carbon-intensive settings, Second, in broadening the scope of environmental practice, policy makers need to revisit their reliance on segmentation models and related social marketing approaches. This is in the light of data that suggest those with strong environmental commitments in the home are often reluctant to engage in similar commitments in other sites of practice. Third, researchers and policy makers therefore need to move beyond the traditional ‘siting’ of environmental practice towards a spatially sophisticated conceptualisation that accounts for the multiple settings of consumption through mapping the relationships that exist between sites of practice.

Black Mothering Legacies: Theorizing Lament as a Form of Justice Research

2021 ◽  
pp. 194084472110495
Author(s):  
Nichole A. Guillory
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Black Child ◽  
The State ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Black Life ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
Black Mothering

I feel compelled by the moment to take up these questions: What does it mean to mother a Black child within/against this historical moment within/against the (carceral) United States? What does it mean to mother a Black child when the legacy of enslavement in the United States is still the basis for assessing the “worth” of you and your children? How do I determine justice for my/a/the Black child in this historical moment? How does this justice come to matter? My approach to critical qualitative research is best understood through Cynthia Dillard’s (2006) notion of “endarkened feminist epistemology” (p. 3). Here I trace a lineage of Black mothering praxis that has been enacted in response to injustice across different historical moments and geographical locations in the United States. This lineage focuses on Black mothers who have lost their children to state violence, when that violence is perpetrated by the state or when the state fails to mete out justice for the taking of Black life.

Generations

2019 ◽  
pp. 51-71
Author(s):  
Lisa Woolfork
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Lost Cause ◽  
African American Authors ◽  
Black Life ◽  
A Site ◽  
Post Civil Rights ◽  
American Authors

This essay explores the ways in which African American authors of that era reclaim the slave past as a site of memory for a nation eager to forget. Lucille Clifton’s Generations (1976), Alex Haley’s Roots (1976), Ishmael Reed’s Flight to Canada (1976), and Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979) are the chapter’s main focus. These works resist the tide of historical amnesia and “lost cause” mythology that would minimize or relegate the enslaved to mere props in the larger Civil War drama of rupture and reconciliation. By centering the stories of the enslaved as ancestral foundations of post-civil rights black life, these authors promote a model for historical memory and genealogy that elevates black resilience.

Assets and Livelihoods of Male- and Female-Headed Households in Ghana

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (18) ◽  
pp. 2974-2996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Kpoor
Keyword(s):  
Consumption Expenditure ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
Broad View ◽  
Household Assets ◽  
Female Headed Households ◽  
Economic Assets ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Living Circumstances

The consumption expenditure approach indicates that female-headed households are better-off than male-headed ones in Ghana. This approach has been criticized by scholars for being one-dimensional. Thus, this study adopts the livelihoods approach—a multidimensional perspective—to examine the human, social, financial, and economic assets and livelihoods of male- and female-headed households in Ghana utilizing in-depth interviews and a survey. The findings of the study demonstrate that male-headed households have greater assets endowment and better livelihood outcomes than female-headed ones indicating that they are better-off than their female counterparts. Thus, the consumption expenditure approach masks the deprivations of female-headed households in assets endowment and poor livelihood outcomes. The study recommends the need for national surveys to incorporate a household assets and livelihoods dimensions in order to capture a broad view of the living circumstances in these two types of households.

“I Am Because We Are”

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faith Wambura Ngunjiri
Keyword(s):  
Women Leaders ◽  
Leadership Training ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Women's Leadership ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
African Context ◽  
Depth Interviews

The Problem Although there are women leading in various sectors within African societies and institutions, very little research has been done to explore and explain their experiences within their cultural, economic, social, historical, and political context. To have a deeper understanding of women’s leadership globally, there must be studies of women’s leadership within specific local contexts. The Solution This article explicates women’s leadership under the ubuntu worldview, with implications for application in contemporary organizations beyond the African context. Ubuntu reflects the African understanding of the essence of humanity. Guided by Black feminist theorizing, the study employed portraiture qualitative approach; in-depth interviews with women leaders provided illustrative quotes about spirituality, interdependence, unity, and community building. The Stakeholders The article is aimed at both leadership scholars and leadership training practitioners with a focus on the African context.

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