In between feminist and critical health psychology: Finding myself, fitting in, and flailing

By Andrea LaMarre

Photo by Alex Hamilton. Karamatura Track in the Waitakere Ranges

This blog post has been adapted from one of Andrea’s presentation at ISCHP’s 12 Biennial Conference in September 2021. Andrea was one of the recipients of the emerging researcher award.

When I consider the question of what a feminist health psychology is, I can’t help but think of myself, wandering between disciplines and literatures, trying to find a place where I feel at home. I think about a young Andrea who, despite having embodied so many privileges, felt like her emotions were too much for everyone. I think about how shrinking myself and trying to please everyone have been strategies I’ve adopted to fit into societal ideas about who I should be. I think about how in graduate school, I began to embrace a louder, more outspoken feminism that encourages emotion, sensation, and commitment to filter through and drive what I do. I think about the theorists and scholars who taught me that being critical, and being feminist, might mean seeping outside of boundaries—corporeally, theoretically, methodologically.

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Responding to a pandemic: What can we learn from African scholars?

By Tracy Morison, May 2020

African countries’ responses to the COVID19 pandemic are complicated by an array of economic and health challenges, introduced and entrenched by neo/colonialism and neoliberal economics. Yet, at the same time, the histories and present realities of these settings mean that African scholars have a different perspective on how to respond to the pandemic than those in more privileged settings. In this piece, I reflect on two important lessons that can be learned from African responses.

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Telling tales of gendered bodies: Professor Virginia Braun’s Inaugral

black and white

Renowned feminist academic Virginia Braun recently gave her inaugral lecture: “Telling tales of gendered bodies: A personal and political reflection on critical scholarship in Trumped-up times” or the alternative title: “Trump Stole My Ontology”.

Not only is Virginia Braun lauded for her feminist work but also for her methodological innovation. Along with Victoria Clarke (see below), Professor Braun is the co-author of one of the most cited papers in psychology (an accessible guide to thematic analysis) and the co-author of Successful Qualitative Research

You can listen to her inaugural below and find out more about her here.

Alternative link to Inaugral:

6 reasons why we have an International Women’s Day

~Glen Jankowski
@EmmaKennedy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As critical psychologists, we need to be critical of sexism. Days like International Working Women’s Day remind us of the importance of feminism. Here’s 6 other reasons why we need International Women’s Day.
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The regulation of the Black body – Marvina Newton’s Keynote at Gendered Bodies in Visible Spaces day

Marvina NewtonMarvina Newton is a Leeds-based activist who founded the charity Angels of Youth and is a board member of Nigerian Community Leeds. Her work focuses on helping diasdvantaged kids through community and participatory projects spanning justice issues such as climate change, racism, mental health issues and sexism. She gave a keynote at the Gendered Bodies in Visbile Spaces at Leeds Beckett University in June 2015 (see poster below). Her talk concerned the way in which Black women’s bodies are regulated including through skin bleaching and hair relaxing.

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