Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar

2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (9) ◽  
pp. 400-401
Author(s):  
Karen Coats
Keyword(s):  
Ruth Behar

Māori Research(er) in Three Poems

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Jacquie Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Bell Hooks ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Third ◽  
Ruth Behar ◽  
Seeking Help

These three poems re-present the findings from a research project that took place in 2013 (Kidd et al. 2018, Kidd et al. 2014). The research explored what health literacy meant for Māori patients and whānau when they accessed palliative care. Through face-to-face interviews and focus groups we engaged with 81 people including patients, whānau, bereaved loved ones, support workers and health professionals. The poems are composite, written to bring some of our themes to life. The first poem is titled Aue. This is a Māori lament that aligns to English words such as ‘oh no’, or ‘arrgh’, or ‘awww’. Each stanza of the poem re-presents some of the stories we heard throughout the research. The second poem is called Tikanga. This is a Māori concept that encompasses customs, traditions and protocols. There are tikanga rituals and processes that guide all aspects of life, death, and relationships. This poem was inspired by an elderly man who explained that he would avoid seeking help from a hospice because ‘they leave tikanga at the door at those places’. His choice was to bear his pain bravely, with pride, within his cultural identity. The third poem is called ‘People Like Me’. This is an autoethnographical reflection of what I experienced as a researcher which draws on the work of scholars such as bell hooks (1984), Laurel Richardson (1997) and Ruth Behar (1996). These and many other authors encourage researchers to use frustration and anger to inform our writing; to use our tears to fuel our need to publish our research.

Letters from Cuba by Ruth Behar

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (11) ◽  
pp. 464-465
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Bush
Keyword(s):  
Ruth Behar

An Island Called Cuba

2011 ◽  
Vol 85 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 79-84
Author(s):  
Jean Stubbs
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
American Anthropologist ◽  
Cuban American ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Rutgers University ◽  
Ruth Behar ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Answer Format

Review of:An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba. Ruth Behar, photographs by Humberto Mayol. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007. xiii + 297 pp. (Cloth US$ 29.95)Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography. Fidel Castro & Ignacio Ramonet. New York: Scribner/Simon & Schuster, 2008. vii + 724 pp. (Paper US$ 22.00, e-book US$ 14.99)Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know. Julia E. Sweig. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. xiv + 279 pp. (Paper US$ 16.95)[First paragraph]These three ostensibly very different books tell a compelling story of each author’s approach, as much as the subject matter itself. Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography is based on a series of long interviews granted by the then-president of Cuba, Fidel Castro, to Spanish-Franco journalist Ignacio Ramonet. Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, by U.S. political analyst Julia Sweig, is one of a set country series, and, like Ramonet’s, presented in question/answer format. An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba, with a narrative by Cuban-American anthropologist Ruth Behar and photographs by Cuban photographer Humberto Mayol, is a retrospective/introspective account of the Jewish presence in Cuba. While from Ramonet and Sweig we learn much about the revolutionary project, Behar and Mayol convey the lived experience of the small Jewish community against that backdrop.

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