Dissertation
WOMEN OF COLOR WRITING AT THE INTERSECTIONS OF THE MEDICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES: TOWARDS A SOCIALLY JUST EDUCATION
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2022
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000004353
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/125309
Abstract
My dissertation urges for a social justice curriculum in medical education that intersects medical and environmental humanities. I examine interdisciplinary texts that include U.S.-centered literature, documentaries, activist discourses, medical journal articles, and environmental discourses. Through these texts, I demand greater attention to environmental factors as social determinants of health and how communities deemed disposable are disproportionately affected by health inequities. My dissertation utilizes frameworks borrowed from medical humanities, environmental humanities, critical race theory, gender theory, and disability politics, particularly slow violence, debility, and reproductive justice, to address the failures of a conservative medical humanities culture that ignores social injustices. Drawing upon women of color writing, including Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals, Cherríe Moraga’s Heroes and Saints, and Toni Morrison’s Home, I theorize how their literary texts function as aesthetic blueprints of lived realities that are ignored in medical training. These aesthetic blueprints act as counter-narratives that re-present communities otherwise rendered disposable as active in coalitions, advocacy, and resistance. By examining these contemporary U.S.-centered texts alongside social movements, I elicit the participation of women of color writers and social movements in diagnosing social determinants of health. I also explore the role of these social movements in transforming medical treatment and the capitalist U.S. healthcare system.The chapters delve into specific case studies of health equity issues in conjunction with health and environmental justice activism. Analyzing the disparities and organizing surrounding breast cancer, pesticide-related illnesses, and forced sterilization, I emphasize the existence of and continued need for collective approaches to health injustices. The liberatory efforts of Black Lives Matter, White Coats for Black Lives, the Black Panther Party, the United Farm Workers, and SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective are centered in my dissertation. Collectively, these case studies support my argument that social liberation movements, and their connections to health and environmental activism, are also social determinants of health. This research joins the published critiques raised against medical education for ignoring oppressive systems and social justice by arguing that medical education should include attention to the historical roles of social movements in shaping medical discourse and practices in the United States.
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Details
- Title
- WOMEN OF COLOR WRITING AT THE INTERSECTIONS OF THE MEDICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES
- Creators
- Heather Ramos
- Contributors
- Desiree Hellegers (Advisor)Nishant Shahani (Advisor)Ashley S. Boyd (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- English, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 274
- Identifiers
- 99900883035301842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation