EDCMA

Description

Professor Dána-Ain Davis (CUNY) and Mars Lord (Abuela Doulas) draw together their extensive expertise in birth work and activism to discuss the obstacles that Black women and birthing people face in the pursuit of reproductive justice. We will explore the role of birth workers in improving birth outcomes and experiences, and consider the (potential) role of anthropology and anthropologists.

Schedule

10:00 Coffee

10:30 Presentations and discussion

12:30 Lunch

Dána-Ain Davis is Professor of Urban Studies at Queens College and the director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth (NYU Press 2019); Battered Black Women and Welfare Reform: Between a Rock and Hard Place (2006); Black Genders and Sexualities with Shaka McGlotten (2012); Feminist Activist Ethnography: Counterpoints to Neoliberalism in North America with Christa Craven (2013); Feminist Ethnography: Thinking Through Methodologies, Challenges and Possibilities with Christa Craven (First Edition 2016; Second Edition 2022). In Reproductive Injustice, Davis examines medical racism in the lives of professional Black women who have given birth prematurely. The book shows that race confounds the perception that class is the root of adverse birth outcomes and lifts up the role that birth workers—midwives, doulas, and birth advocates—play in addressing Black women’s birth outcomes.

Mars Lord is a Certified Life Coach and birth activist. She is the Leading Voice in Black Maternal Health and cultural competency. A multi-award-winning doula, mentor, and educator. She is on the RCOG Race Equality Taskforce and on the Birthrights Legal inquiry into Black Maternal Health panel. With over 18 years of experience, Mars is in high demand, both in the UK and across the world, as a speaker and trainer. Mars created Abuela Doulas, a doula preparation course primarily, but not exclusively, for Black and Brown women, and is the Founder of BLA (Black Lives Abuela) Scholarship. This scholarship is to help Black women who wish to become doulas to train and not be held back by socio-economic disadvantage. She is Inclusion Consultant to several large companies causing them to look deep into their practise to make systemic and structural change.