Black women and da 'Rona : community, consciousness, and ethics of care

Rooted in the ways Black women understand their lives, this collection archives practices of healing, mothering, and advocacy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recognizing that Black women have been living in pandemics as far back as colonialism and enslavement, this volume acknowledges that records of the past—from the 1918 flu pandemic to the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic—often erase the existence and experiences of Black women as a whole. Writing against this archival erasure, this collection consciously recenters the real-time experiences and perspectives of care, policy concerns, grief, and joy of Black women throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Nineteen contributors from interdisciplinary fields and diverse backgrounds explore Black feminine community, consciousness, ethics of care, spirituality, and social critique. They situate Black women’s multidimensional experiences with COVID-19 and other violences that affect their lives. The stories they tell are connected and interwoven, bound together by anti-Black gendered COVID necropolitics and commitments to creating new spaces for breathing, healing, and wellness. Ultimately, this time-warping analysis shows how Black women imagine a more just society, rapidly adapt to changing experiences, and innovate ethics of care even in the midst of physical distancing, which can be instructive for thinking of new ways of living both during and beyond the era of COVID-19. Contributors Shamara Wyllie Alhassan Sharnnia Artis Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards Candace S. Brown Jenny Douglas Kaja Dunn Onisha Etkins Rhonda M. Gonzales Endia Hayes Ashley E. Hollingshead Kendra Jason Julia S. Jordan-Zachery Stacie LeSure Janaka B. Lewis Michelle Meggs Nitya Mehrotra Sherine Andreine Powerful Marjorie Shavers Breauna Marie Spencer Tehia Starker Glass Amber Walker Cover Series Information Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Foreword by Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards Acknowledgments Introduction: We Will Not Be Disappeared: Black Women’s Responses to COVID-19 / Jordan-Zachery and Alhassan 1. “Cyah Leave We Alone, We Rel Stayin’ Home”: A Black Caribbean Diasporic Reflection on Healing Through Movement, Creating Home, and Time-Warping During COVID-19 / Powerful and Etkins 2. Femme Mixing: On an Erotics of Slowness and Its Wet Futures / Endia Hayes 3. Black Women and Coronavirus in the United Kingdom: The Need for a Black Feminist Epidemiology / Jenny Douglas 4. Wanawake Wavumilivu: Tanzanian Women’s Voices of Survivance / Walker and Gonzales 5. Exploring Resiliency and Coping Strategies Among Black Women Enrolled in Graduate School During COVID-19 and Overlapping Racial Injustices / Spencer et al. 6. Da ’Rona and a Virtual Kitchen Table Politics of Community / Hollingshead and Meggs 7. Black Motherschooling: Creating a Liberatory Community for Home Education / Brown et al. 8. The Narratives of Black Women Techies: An In-Depth Qualitative Investigation of the Experiences of Black Women in Tech Organizations During the COVID-19 Pandemic / Breauna Marie Spencer 9. Fugitive Breath, Breathing Bones: Ancestral Guide for Abolishing Anti-Black Gendered COVID-19 Necropolitics / Shamara Wyllie Alhassan Appendix: Our Ethic of Care / Julia S. Jordan-Zachery Contributors Index "Deliberately writing against archival erasure and death driven logics of anti-Blackness, this volume chronicles Black women's aliveness, ethics of care, and rituals of healing. Nineteen contributors from interdisciplinary fields and diverse backgrounds explore Black feminine community, consciousness, ethics of care, spirituality, and social critique. They situate Black women's multidimensional experiences with COVID-19 and other violences that affect their lives. The stories they tell are connected and interwoven, bound together by anti-Black gendered COVID necropolitics and commitments to creating new spaces for breathing, healing and wellness"-- Provided by publisher