Network member Martin Munroe (University of East Anglia, UK) summarizes and reflects on the first Black Health and the Humanities workshop.
When I received the email that I had been accepted into the Black Health and Humanities Network, it was a surprise. I didn’t expect to be accepted. As a researcher in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia, I didn’t consider myself researching a ‘proper’ humanities subject. This was reinforced by a general feeling of ‘imposter syndrome’ which stalks all first year PhD students, especially as someone from a vastly underrepresented group in the academy.
The first session workshop actually dived into this subject, Approaching Blackness in the Academy. Splitting into smaller discussion groups, it was the first time I found myself talking with fellow scholars about issues I had a personal investment in, issues which encompassed my research. For the months prior to the workshops, as a researcher in the Literature, Creative and Drama department at East Anglia, I’ve inhabited a largely non-black space and interacted with fellow scholars whose research, while highly interesting, is poles apart from my own.
It can be easy to feel despondent around the issues of white supremacy and the legacies of colonialism, especially after 2020. The pandemic has truly exposed the inequalities in society, with black communities impacted by higher Covid-19 death rates through the usual suspects of institutional disadvantage. The killing of George Floyd and the subsequent global protests saw a global resistance to anti-blackness not seen since in the UK since the protests of the 1980’s.
The Black Health and Humanities Network doesn’t shy away from confronting this and rather than simply showing causality between notions of race and health, it also looks forward to solutions. My initial take-away from this, was not only is there a vigorous debate in the academy from scholars who share many of my concerns, there are also routes established and being established to address anti-blackness and the destruction of colonial history.
Highlights for me were Dr Lioba Hirsch’s examination of the archives and their usefulness as objects to uncover the colonial indigenous past – Working in Colonial Ruins: Antiblack Racism and Global Health. It’s a new way of thinking for me, as I’ve often not seen the value in these types of archives, essentially only viewing them as archives for a colonist history (archival objects constructed by colonists). Her lecture helped me to see beyond this and to think differently about these archives and how we can ‘draw out’ the indigenous story here. Looking at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s archival film, Roads to Africa , I was struck by the idea of imagining the perspectives of cooks, mosquito catchers, and the people on the road watching the white expeditions. I found the idea of merging creativity with history exciting, especially as a fiction writer.
Approaching the network from a non-scientific background, the medical aspects covered were intriguing, especially c the media attention on black people and Covid-19 infection. Dr Grace Redhead’s talk Histories and Memories of Sickle Cell Anaemia in the Postcolonial British Hospital, about the relationship between the NHS and sickle cell anaemia sufferers, to me chimed with many of the issues facing black people and the NHS today – including mental health diagnosis and pain thresholds.
Despite my background as a research student in a school of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, to my shame, I tend to focus on fiction and neglect poetry. So it was a revelation to be introduced, by Dr Chisomo Kalinga, to Kayo Chingonyi’s Kumukanda and Dr Stella Nyanzi’s collection, No Roses from My Mouth: Poems from Prison. It demonstrated how powerful poetry can be and how important it is to remain open to sources outside of my usual comfort zone. A hallmark of the power of a network such as Black Health and the Humanities is its ability to promote interdisciplinary interpretations. Over the course of the two-day workshops, I met scholars involved with or with interests in water security, midwifery and clinical research, and Afro-feminism, to name a small few. Dr Josie Gill and Dr Amber Lascelles ensured a truly vibrant, diverse set of disciplines and interests were represented, all underpinned by our shared interests in how arts and humanities interplays with an understanding and the improving of the health of black people today and furthers our understanding of colonised black people of the past.
Participation in the Black Health and Humanities Network has proved invaluable in terms of networking opportunities. As a black scholar with an interest in the black humanities, it was a new experience sharing ideas and discussing them with so many scholars. For example, during my MA, there were no other black students, with one student of colour from India and one lecturer of colour; only my project concerned itself with black issues. For my PhD I find a similar make up, I’ve only met three fellow PhD students of colour, two of them introduced through my supervisor, one of the only black female professors in the department and part of the small number in the country. It was invigorating to see how lively the scene of research into black issues and concerns is– seeking to make sense and to create new spaces and new interpretations at the intersection of race and medicine.
I found Dr Josie Gill and Dr Amber Lascelles both professional and warm, the physical shakedown before the free writing exercise at the end of the workshop really surprised me; it made the closing hour a lot more personal and memorable and I go into future workshops knowing they will be well-run and thought out. Since the workshop, participants have formed a WhatsApp group and are in regular contact, sharing upcoming events and supporting ideas. I personally plan to discuss our work with a fellow creative writer next week, and I was alerted to a talk I would have missed by the sharing of information in the group.
We look forward to the next workshops in June!