Using a combination of work by bell hooks, Paul Farmer and Dorothy Roberts, we will use the conceptual framing of "Centering the Margins" to analyze different health equity topics and become familiar understanding and using this lens as a way of critical analysis.
Distilling the ideas of "the preferential option for the poor", "affirmative justice", and "centering the margins", into an easy one pager is challenging. However for our purposes consider the following set of questions as a simplified way of engaging with this material.
Are we serving the margins?
What is the preferential option?
What "freedom to" is gained?
Who is at the center of the system or process? Who holds power?
Who is at the margins? Who is oppressed?
Why is the center the center? Why are the margins the margins?
In moving to the margins, are we/they replicating existing oppressive structures?
What options are offered to the margins? How are they different than the center? Why?
What choices are available to the margins? What are they free from? What are they free to?