From category to community

FROM PLACES TO PEOPLE

DEFINING

COMMUNITY

BlackOut UK Long Read: Out of Place, Again?In this provocative discussion paper, Rob Berkeley argues that a too-simplistic definition of community as ‘place’ or neighbourhood serves to perpetuate exclusion and inequality for min…

"the ‘who’ we are, our being-ness, is the outcome of constant sociality enacted in common and created and sustained in common through the inter-relational linking of action, materiality, subjectivity, speech and the world of accepted meanings"

Studdert, D., & Walkerdine, V. (2016). Being in Community: Re-Visioning Sociology. The Sociological Review, 64(4), 613–621

health, identity & belonging

UNDERSTANDING BLACK MASCULINITIES & POPULATION HEALTH

Intersectionality is a great start

Intersectionality is a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, an American academic, in the late 1980’s. It describes how race, class, gender and other personal characteristics ‘intersect’ with one another and overlap. Crenshaw wanted to remind people that when thinking about equality, we need to think beyond unique attributes like skin colour and gender and recognise that humans often have more than one characteristic that is subject to discrimination or hostility.

Intersectionality is a sensitising concept derived from legal sociology rather than a theoretical position - it is understandably focused on issues of access to justice, and equality before the law. It is a concept developed in response to the erasure of Black women in US public policy, and has the most direct and powerful application in this arena. Intersectional sensitivity provides a better framework for understanding, not a perfect one.

For the UK's black queer men, there remains a gap in both empirical evidence, and in theoretical consideration of our lives in the academy - intersectionality, may offer a step in the right direction, however in policy terms, its tendency to reductive usage, limits its explanatory power.

Genre not gender - the man-not

We should conceptualize the Black male as a victim, oppressed by his sex. The Man-Not, therefore, is a corrective of sorts, offering a concept of Black males that could challenge the existing accounts of Black men and boys desiring the power of white men who oppress them that has been proliferated throughout academic research across disciplines.

Professor Tommy Curry (Edinburgh University) argues that Black men's mortality data, as well as patterns of abuse and rape, and their 'genred' existence deserves study and theorization. He offers intellectual, historical, sociological, and psychological evidence that the analysis of patriarchy offered by mainstream feminism (as well as Black feminism) does not yet fully capture the role that homoeroticism, sexual violence, and vulnerability play in the deaths and lives of Black males. Curry challenges us to reassess and respond to the evidence rather than solely the popular perception of conditions that actually affect all Black males.

"In liberal arts fields, it is assumed because black and brown men’s gender is masculine, there is an innate advantage they have over all women and are patriarchal. This has not been empirically borne out in any of these analyses, so we have not had any opportunities to really interrogate how black men think about masculinity. . .

. . . black male vulnerability is a term I use to capture the disadvantages that black males endure compared with other groups; the erasure of black males’ actual lived experience from theory; and the violence and death black males suffer in society. . . We do not think of black men as victims of statutory rape or suffering from the trauma of past abuse. We do not think of black males as suffering from depression or the psychological burdens of their existence. It is asserted in our theories and our practical lives that they are always fine, and any deviant behavior is a product of their errant masculinity rather than the denial that they live in pain, with histories of trauma, because they are oppressed racialized men. " - Tommy Curry, interviewed in 2017

LEARNING FROM HIV/AIDS

Learning from COVID-19

The notion of a syndemic was first conceived by Merrill Singer, an American medical anthropologist, in the 1990s. Writing in The Lancet in 2017, together with Emily Mendenhall and colleagues, Singer argued that a syndemic approach reveals biological and social interactions that are important for prognosis, treatment, and health policy. Limiting the harm caused by SARS-CoV-2 will demand far greater attention to non communicable diseases and socioeconomic inequality than has hitherto been admitted. A syndemic is not merely a comorbidity. Syndemics are characterised by biological and social interactions between conditions and states, interactions that increase a person's susceptibility to harm or worsen their health outcomes.

Syndemics: mastering the multiverse

"Although structural interventions that address the marginalization, trauma, and oppression that Black Gay/Bi Men face are needed for quelling syndemic processes, this study suggests that such approaches must be complemented by interventions that address men's social isolation, identity development, and sense of community. Interventions should build on resiliency factors, from family acceptance to community involvement to social activism, which may alleviate the negative consequences of structural barriers to health."

"Results of this study provide evidence for using strength-based intervention strategies to prevent syndemic conditions. Findings suggest that to attenuate socio-structural barriers to health and comorbid psychosocial health concerns, interventions must address young men's social isolation and promote positive identity and sense of community."

Reed, S.J. and Miller, R.L. (2016), Thriving and Adapting: Resilience, Sense of Community, and Syndemics among Young Black Gay and Bisexual Men. Am J Community Psychol, 57: 129-143. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12028

BlackOut UK Read: We’re all Black Queer Men nowNew, community-led research report from BLKOUT_UK, the Black queer men’s collective, presents the results of a ground-breaking research project

"The syndemics theory considers the synergistic effects of the presence of certain illnesses or diseases, in particular social conditions, that contribute to health inequalities (disease concentrations), such as a deprived neighbourhood, and how these conditions interact with the diseases to cause greater detrimental effects than if those conditions did not exist (disease interaction) (Singer et al., 2013)."

https://www.nationalelfservice.net/mental-health/psychosis/syndemics-theory-better-explanation-ethnic-disparities-incidence-prevalence-psychosis/

THEORY GROUNDED IN LEARNING VIA PRINCIPLED STRUGGLES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

BLACK FEMINIST RADICAL ORGANISING

adriennemareeebrown.net

POST UK WELFARE STATE MUTUAL AID

relationshipsproject.org

REVIVE HOPE FOR BETTER, JUSTICE ORIENTED, DIGITAL PUBLIC SPACES

The Signals: A Guided PrimerWhen we walk into a public space like a park, a library, or a public square we use design elements to assess how welcome — or not — we feel.

BLACK BY DESIGN: REIMAGINING RENEWAL AS 'BUILD WITH', OVER GENTRIFY OUT

blackspace.org

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