In this episode, we speak with our guests Dr. Carolette Norwood and Dr. Thembi Carr about putting Black Feminism into practice using community-based participatory research in a reproductive justice project with Black women in Cincinnati.  

Carolette Norwood is professor and department head of sociology and criminology at Howard University. Dr. Norwood is a Black feminist sociologist whose research explores the implications of violence (structural, spatial, and interpersonal) at the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, and space on reproductive and sexual health injustice for Black women. Dr. Norwood’s research on Black women’s economic mobility and reproductive (in)justice in Cincinnati collectively informs her first book project tentatively titled, Jim Crow Geographies: Mapping the Intersections of Poverty, Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Urbane Space, under contract with Columbia University Press.

Thembi Carr is a scholarly activist researcher whose focus is on multicultural education, specifically dismantling structural and overt methods of subjugation within education systems. In addition to continuing this work within schools, Dr. Carr has also been using her skills to examine the access (or lack thereof) that Black women have to reproductive health care within the Cincinnati, Ohio area and in the overturning of the Roe versus Wade legislation. She is also a mother to a wonderful son.

The conversation starts with exploring our guests’ journey into participatory action research (03:29). Topics discussed include participatory or community-based action research, black feminism, and reproductive justice (09:23), black women and knowledge production (12:12), the Participatory Research Reproductive Justice Project (13:53), feminist values in the project (17:54), learning from and learning with the community (24:38), notions of the researcher as blank sheet and researcher’s values (42:43), ethos of black feminism(s) and action research (48:34). Tune-in to hear more!

Learn more about our guests, their work, and references mentioned in the episode at our companion site https://www.parfemtrailblazers.net/  This episode is hosted by Patricia Maguire and produced by Vanessa Gold and Shikha Diwakar. Music is by ZakharValaha from Pixabay.