Next, I haven't had all that much exposure to Katherine Dettwyler's work. I do know she is from here in the U.S. and
Breastfeeding Biocultural Perspectives is her second text -- that is co-edited, her first single-authored is on death and dying. I visited her website '
Thoughts On Breastfeeding' on a few occasions, and saw her in the documentary
Breasts recently, but that's pretty much the extent. This book is about examining the biological process of breastfeeding along with the culturally determined behavior. The cover says this viewpoint 'has important implications for understanding the past, present, and future condition of our species', which can all happen through this custom. I'm excited to see what it has to offer.
Finally, Faye V. Harrison, PhD, a cultural (political) Black Feminist Anthropologist and professor at the University of Florida who focuses on the African Diaspora, human rights, critical race feminism and others. . . . and her work changed my life.
When I was an undergrad I came across Dr. Harrison as I was preparing to enroll in an independent study course. I found myself at a point where I began to question the ethics of anthropology, and began to have doubts about the ideas of going off to a foreign land just to study people and produce scholarship in order to finish a dissertation and get a PhD, among various other concerns. I couldn't fully articulate my thoughts at that moment but it seemed exploitative and weighed heavily on me. At this same time I was also extremely lonely and discouraged and was yearning to find more Black women in the discipline; besides the few white women that had been elected the voice of 'women' in the field -- Margaret Mead, Eleanor Leacock, Sally Slocum, the mainstream theoretical perspectives taught in class are all made up of 'Dead white men on parade'. I came across Dr. Harrison's professional website and sent her a message and graciously she provided me with information, names of other Black women in the field and told me about her book
Outsider Within: Reworking Anthropology in the Global Age that at the time of our correspondence was not so long ago published. It was through this text is where I discovered that anthropology can
reach far beyond the mainstream white-centric and often imperialistic ideas of ethnography, note-taking, and promoting 'Otherization,' but it could radically transform, promote social equality and voice (especially vulnerable) communities. This is what I was looking for. And it opened up an entire new world. I ended up doing a presentation in the Anthropology Department, based on the information from this independent study and the theory from
Outsider Within, along with another text I used for the course,
Black Feminist Anthropology, to ask
why, in a discipline that claims to largely debunk social stratification, do we continue to promote racist and gendered ideology, exclusivity and marginalization and
why it's important to see the viewpoints of Black women anthropologists, and hear what we had to say then
and what we continue to say now. I titled it
Anthropological Theory! Where Are Our Sistahs? Were it not for Dr. Harrison's work, there is little doubt that I would not be here today promoting breastfeeding from the angle that I do. And more than likely, I probably wouldn't have even continued studying anthropology. Instead, I'm almost certain I would have dropped the discipline all together for disappointment and changed my major, but I once again fell in love with it since it was now in alignment with my personal and professional beliefs.
Resisting Racism And Xenophobia is edited by Dr. Harrison, and is a 'collection of essays [that] focuses on the intersections between race, gender, sexuality, class, and nationality that exert a huge influence on human rights conflicts around the world.' Though it does not explicitly discuss breastfeeding or birth, racism and xenophobia underscore disparities, and
must become central to the conversation. I'm thrilled I finally own a copy.
I found this video with Dr. Harrison that is from a recent talk she gave at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. In it, she discusses The Cultural Politics of Race in the New Millennium. Listen carefully.
On Tuesday I found out my abstract was accepted for next year's Breastfeeding and Feminism Symposia at the University of North Carolina, It Takes A Village To Support A Nursing Mom and I'm pretty excited about it. I'd been asked by a couple of people if I heard anything back from the board members. I hadn't. But there was a good reason, of course -- they lost my submission. I knew something was up when I didn't hear anything from them -- AT ALL, on whether I was chosen or not, so I contacted the committee and eventually found out what happened. Oopsie. No big deal, though they were very apologetic and told me after some digging they located it and sent it off to the powers that be for consideration, and after a few days got back to me with the news.
