Blog
Racial health inequalities in Brazil and the United States through history
Health, disease and race interacted in a very particular way in the medical thinking of Brazil and the United States at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. Comparing the two cases can help us to better understand how the history of a racialized medical science was organized.
Nurturing Uncertainty: How Recuperation Retreats Foster Care Communities in Post-Meltdown Japan
Recuperation retreats that have emerged following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan stand as a powerful example of how experimental practices of care foster transformative communities in the midst of enduring uncertainty.
The Home, School, and Street: Exploring the Everyday Geographies of Caregiving Youth
Drawing on findings from a multi-year, mixed-method research project in collaboration with caregiving youth, young people under the age of 18 who take on caregiving responsibilities to support a parent, guardian, relative, or sibling who is chronically ill, disabled, or otherwise requiring care for medical reasons, we offer a critical examination of the ways young people’s everyday geographies of care in the home, the school, and the street, illustrate the importance of understanding ableism not only as oppression of the nonnormative body-mind, but also as the repression of the ability to give and receive care.
Beyond Abandonment: Queer Aging and Community Care
To be queer and to be old––such permutation seems to be impossible given the realities of life especially for queer people. This dissertation chapter in progress examines queer aging in the Global South by asking how care looks like for a population who is both underserviced by the state and falls out of the bounds of the heteronormative family structure––two institutions that have been seen as the sources of care for older people.
HIV Care and “Subject Activism” in the Ruins of Neoliberal Islam
In Turkey, HIV has never been considered a domestic issue but a peril that only concerns Eastern European sex workers and Western queers, both perceived to be sexual deviants, hence, always-already ill. However the number of HIV diagnoses in Turkey has increased by 620% since 2007
Growing vegetables, making homes
Homes are made in more ways than one. They are made as entanglements of agencies that are both material and discursive: a bed, somewhere to cook, maybe some family members, hopefully a place where you might feel comfortable. Indeed, the phrase ‘to be at home’ refers to a sense of ease, or belonging. Homes are […]
Race, Foster Care, and Queer Kinship
Although foster parents’ racialized, gendered, and classed depictions of carework won them political success, they have had lasting ramifications for American families who are not white, not affluent, or not cisgender. In 2024, what little protections American families have are eroding rapidly.
“Reproductive Carcerality and the Politics of Abolition Feminist Abortion Care”
In the aftermath of the Dobbs decisions, abortion care and services are increasingly vulnerable. In the U.S reproductive life is shaped throughout carceral techniques, and the criminalization of abortion now renders pregnancy as punishment. An abolition feminists vision of abortion centers care, community, and accessibility to resists the ways that carcerality threatens reproductive liberation.
Una Soledad Acompañada: Trans Care, Study, and Opacity in Colombian Prison Worlds
This research probes the problem of care for trans people in Colombian prison worlds, especially the role of study as care. Care is often a site of untidy contestation, of suspicion, resentment, and silence alongside generosity, compassion, and trust. How do we act when others’ realities are not ours, but we seek to fight for and with them regardless?
“Family or Boss?” Cultural Exchange Narratives and New Law Implementation in the US Au Pair Program
Even with new labor protections in place, Massachusetts au pairs still find themselves vulnerable due to the lack of agency supervision and the program’s emphasis on family membership and “cultural exchange.”
Invisible Frontliners: Filipina/o Caregivers in the United States and Collective Care
Before, during the COVID-19 era, and continued to today, Filipino care workers are at the frontlines of assisted living facilities, residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs) and as personal attendants to chronically ill and differently abled people in the San Francisco/Bay Area. Because the caregiving industry has stagnated as an under resourced sector of American healthcare, the care workers within it suffer from a host of labor violations. Yet, caregivers have innovated their ability to care for one another.
I Carry the City on My Back
The Wu-Tang Clan story reflects the ethos of black abundance, which is based on the principle of sharing resources. However, it also sheds light on the overwhelmingly male world of street drug dealing. Chapter 3, titled “I Carry the City on My Back,” from the forthcoming book manuscript “That’s My Heart: Queering Intimacy in Hip-Hop Culture,” delves into the ambivalences of hip-hop culture and masculinity