Decolonising Narrative: Creative Approaches to Black Healthcare in Britain

This event brings two academics and artists from the Black Health and the Humanities Network, Dr Yewande Okuleye and Rianna Raymond-Williams, to reflect on the creative methods they engage with for healthcare education and empowerment in Black communities in Britain. Bridging art and advocacy, Yewande draws on poetry as a liberatory practice, working to dismantle stigma surrounding therapeutic psychedelic use; Rianna draws on the digital to raise awareness about sexual and reproductive health. This session will begin with Yewande and Rianna sharing snippets of their practice, followed by a discussion session in which the audience will be invited to think with us about issues of race, place, and voice in healthcare and healthcare research ecologies. What does it mean to ‘decolonise’ narrative practice’; whose voices and what modes of expression are privileged in the production of knowledge about health? How might the stories we tell engage with the political realities of healthcare, and what are the possibilities for policy change? How might we meaningfully attend to the diversity of embodied experiences?

All are welcome – we look forward to a rich, generative discussion on narrative across different disciplinary positions and practices!

The seminar is free to attend, although we ask you reserve your space via Eventbrite.

A collaboration between the Black Health and Humanities Network and Narrative Practices lab at the Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities.

@DurhamImh