In the broadest terms, my research program is focused on the analysis, deconstruction, and reconceptualization of structures that stand in the way of health justice and equity. I use qualitative and critical historical methodologies rooted in frameworks including Black feminist theory, queer theory, reproductive justice, social epidemiology, and critical disability theory to approach questions of knowledge production, knowledge acquisition, and boundary-making. This work is deeply informed by my clinical practice in sexual/reproductive healthcare and in public health during the COVID-19 pandemic, all areas well known to re/produce poor outcomes for structurally and historically excluded individuals and communities.
My doctoral project addressed longstanding problems of structural racism in academic nursing by investigating how the discipline engaged with ideas of racialized social difference – often called “culture” – from the mid-1950s through the rise of “cultural competence” in the late 1980s. It situated this story in the contexts of nursing’s post-war entry into the university, developments in mid-century social science, and social justice movements that set the health of historically excluded communities on the national policy agenda. I argue that racism and sexism functioned both as intersectional oppressions and in perceived opposition to and competition with each other in this process: more plainly, that the historically feminized field of nursing strategically leveraged whiteness in its effort to legitimize itself academically. In doing so, it reified that whiteness as the center and mainstay of its disciplinary framework, including its approaches to racialized social difference.
Illustrating the operating mechanics of whiteness in nursing’s cultural theorizing is the first step in my broader research program targeting structural and systemic barriers to health justice and equity. I work to support and amplify community priorities and knowledge throughout my research, particularly as it pertains to sexual/reproductive health.
My research consistently interrogates how healthcare professionals and seekers navigate systems of knowledge as well as juridical, carceral, and surveillance systems in order to access and provide care. This work supports the work of community health organizations such as doula programs, birth centers, and abortion access networks, as well as professional education and workforce development efforts focused on justice and equity.