Moment Mapping as Reparative Arts to Address Obstetric Racism in Labor & Delivery
Abstract
The United States’ medical system has a lengthy history of obstetric racism and Black birthing people have long endured the burden of this violence (Bridges 2011, Mullings 2005, Roberts 1997, Washington 2006). In 2021, the maternal mortality rate for non-latinx Black women was nearly three times the rate of non-latinx White women (Hoyert 2023). Given that 60-70% of perinatal deaths are preventable, we need new approaches and orientations to address these problems (Scott 2012). This study investigates the relationships between racial bias, discrimination, and hate and how they structure labor and delivery in the U.S. We propose a unique methodological approach called moment mapping, which bridges data visualization and healing arts, to investigate and address moments of anti-Black hate that permeate clinical encounters in hospital-based labor and delivery care. We use a mixed methods approach including in-depth interviews, participant observation, birth histories, healing circles, and reparative arts to center the experiences and perspectives of Black women and birthing people. The study is designed to provide the foundation for future research into effective hospital-based interventions to redress harm and to guide efforts to mitigate obstetric racism and its effects.
Field
African American Studies, Family and Community Medicine at UC Davis; Anthropology Department at UCLA, School of Nursing at UCLA
Team
Ugo Edu, Adeola Oni-Orisan, Akua Agyen, Kia Skrine-Jeffers
Ugo Edu, PhD, MPH
Ugo Edu is a medical anthropologist working at the intersection of medical anthropology, public health, black feminism, and science, technology, and society studies (STS). Using interdisciplinary approaches, her scholarship focuses on reproductive and sexual health, gender, race, aesthetics, body knowledge, and body modifications. Her book project: The “Family Planned”: Racial Aesthetics, Sterilization, and Reproductive Fugitivity in Brazil, traces the influence of an economy of race, aesthetics, and sexuality on reproductive and sterilization practices of women in Brazil. She is working on a play, Securing Ties, which draws heavily on her book project as a means for critical public engagement and an incorporation of the arts in her scholarship. She is an Assistant Professor in the African American Studies Department and leads the Black ASH Lab at UCLA.
Adeola Oni-Orisan, MD, PhD
Adeola Oni-Orisan is a medical anthropologist and family physician whose research engages critical race theory, Black feminist studies, and science and technology studies to examines how ideas about Blackness, gender, and health are reinforced, deployed and resisted in struggles for health and well-being. She has conducted research on issues related to reproductive health in Nigeria, Zambia, and the United States. Her book project, “To Be Delivered: Pregnant and Born Again in Nigeria” is an ethnographic and historical exploration of the lived experiences of pregnant Nigerians as they navigate intersecting yet competing systems of care proposed by state, church, and international development organizations in search of successful deliveries.
Akua Agyen
Akua Adoma Agyen is an anthropologist and a holistic therapist. Her research, teaching, and clinical interests are shaped by and speak to Black Feminist Theory, Black feminist health and science studies, sociocultural anthropology, and practices of care and healing rooted in anticarceral and anticolonial politics. Their current research examines how Black women and girls’ contemporary experiences of sexual assault evidence collection processes are produced and shaped by histories of medico-legal racism in the U.S. She conducts research with the aim of investing in models of care that are Black feminist, queer, and abolitionist. Akua is based in Tovaangar (Los Angeles) where she is a doctoral student in UCLA’s Department of Anthropology and an associate therapist with the Manifesting M.E. Wellness healing collective.
Kia Skrine Jeffers, PhD, RN, PHN
Kia Skrine Jeffers is an Assistant Professor in the UCLA School of Nursing and Associate Director for the Arts in the UCLA Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice & Health. Her scholarship draws upon her professional experience in the arts and community-based nursing. Her research centers the structural factors that shape and reinforce health inequity between racialized people in the United States; the lived/living experiences of Black women, whose mental and physical health are directly impacted by structural and social inequity as they age; and the use of the arts to collect and disseminate data among affected communities.