Narratives of (Dis)Enfranchisement

Narratives of (Dis)Enfranchisement
Author: Tracey Overbey
Publisher: American Library Association
Total Pages: 89
Release: 2022-08-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0838949924

This first Special Report in a two-volume set on Black and African Americans’ experiences in libraries provides an overview of their historical exclusion from libraries and educational institutions in the United States, also exploring the ways in which this legacy is manifest in our contemporary context. A compelling call to action, it will serve as the beginning of many conversations in which librarianship reckons with its racist past to move towards a more equitable future. Still a predominantly white profession, librarianship has a legacy of racial discrimination, and it is essential that we face the ways that race impacts how we meet the needs of diverse user communities. Identifying and acknowledging implicit and learned bias is a necessary step toward transforming not only our professional practice but also our scholarship, assessment, and evaluation practices. From this Special Report, readers will learn the hidden history of Africa’s contributions to libraries and educational institutions, which are often omitted from K-12, higher education, and library school curricula; engage with the racist legacies of libraries as well as contemporary scholarship related to Black and African American users’ experiences with libraries; be introduced to frameworks and theories that can help to identify and unpack the role of race in librarianship and in library users’ experiences; and garner practical takeaways to bring to their own views and practice of librarianship.

Communication and Disenfranchisement

Communication and Disenfranchisement
Author: Eileen Berlin Ray
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 541
Release: 2013-12-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1136689788

This volume and its companion case studies book deal with some of the people, groups, and classes who are living a disenfranchised existence in the United States. Whether through birth, life events, or unfortunate circumstances, they are denied full privileges, rights, and power within the existing societal structure. Centered around societal health problems as they relate to socioeconomic status, family, abuse, and health concerns, these volumes examine salient issues from several theoretical frameworks, including feminist theory and the social construction of reality. Communication and Disenfranchisement provides theory-based essays on topics such as the homeless, adult survivors of sexual assault, battered women, persons with disabilities, impoverished women, the indigent living in the inner city, persons with HIV/AIDS, the terminally ill, and the elderly. Case Studies in Communication and Disenfranchisement provides parallel case studies, applying the issues and concepts discussed in the essays. Used together, these books provide theoretically-based applications of social health issues within a communication framework. Traditionally, health communication research has emphasized the communication-physical health relationship. Inadvertently, this primary focus has restricted what information has been included under the domain of health communication. These books expand that domain by examining how the communication-disenfranchisement relationship is accomplished, managed, and overcome, and by recognizing the significance of the pragmatic and theoretic implications of this inquiry.

Challenging Colonial Narratives

Challenging Colonial Narratives
Author: Matthew A. Beaudoin
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2019-04-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816539901

Challenging Colonial Narratives demonstrates that the traditional colonial dichotomy may reflect an artifice of the colonial discourse rather than the lived reality of the past. Matthew A. Beaudoin makes a striking case that comparative research can unsettle many deeply held assumptions and offer a rapprochement of the conventional scholarly separation of colonial and historical archaeology. To create a conceptual bridge between disparate dialogues, Beaudoin examines multigenerational nineteenth-century Mohawk and settler sites in southern Ontario, Canada. He demonstrates that few obvious differences exist and calls for more nuanced interpretive frameworks. Using conventional categories, methodologies, and interpretative processes from Indigenous and settler archaeologies, Beaudoin encourages archaeologists and scholars to focus on the different or similar aspects among sites to better understand the nineteenth-century life of contemporaneous Indigenous and settler peoples. Beaudoin posits that the archaeological record represents people’s navigation through the social and political constraints of their time. Their actions, he maintains, were undertaken within the understood present, the remembered past, and perceived future possibilities. Deconstructing existing paradigms in colonial and postcolonial theories, Matthew A. Beaudoin establishes a new, dynamic discourse on identity formation and politics within the power relations created by colonization that will be useful to archaeologists in the academy as well as in cultural resource management.

Narratives of (Dis)Engagement

Narratives of (Dis)Engagement
Author: Amanda L. Folk
Publisher: American Library Association
Total Pages: 81
Release: 2022-08-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0838949932

Librarianship is still a predominantly white profession. It is essential that current practitioners as well as those about to enter the field take an unflinching look at the profession’s legacy of racial discrimination, including the ways in which race might impact service to users such as students in school, public, and academic libraries. Given the prevalence of implicit and explicit bias against Black and African American people, authors Folk and Overbey argue that we must speak to these students directly to hear their stories and thereby understand their experiences. This Special Report shares the findings of a qualitative research study that explored the library experiences of Black and African American undergraduate students both before and during college, grounding it within an equity framework. From this Report readers will learn details about the study, which focused on the potential role of race in the students’ interactions with library staff, including white staff and staff of color; gain insight into Black and African American users’ perceptions of libraries and library staff, attitudes towards reading, frequency of library usage, and the importance of family; understand the implications of the study’s findings for our practice and for librarianship more broadly, including our ongoing commitment to diversifying the profession; and walk away with recommendations that can be applied to every library and educational context, such as guidance for developing an antiracist organization and more equitable service provision.

Neo-segregation Narratives

Neo-segregation Narratives
Author: Brian Norman
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2010
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0820335975

Norman traces a neo-segregation narrative tradition--one that developed in tandem with neo-slave narratives--by which writers return to a moment of stark de jure segregation to address contemporary concerns about national identity and the persistence of racial divides.

Disenfranchised Grief

Disenfranchised Grief
Author: Renee Blocker Turner
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2023-07-25
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000911896

Disenfranchised Grief expands the professional helper’s understanding of the grief experiences that result from social, cultural, and relational oppression, microaggressions, disempowerment, and overt violence. The authors blend trauma-informed practice and recent research on critical race theory, cultural humility, and intersectionality to both broaden mental health professionals’ conceptualization of disenfranchised grief and its impacts and promote equity and inclusion among populations that have been marginalized.

The Disenfranchised

The Disenfranchised
Author: Peggy Sapphire
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2016-12-05
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1351864351

The Disenfranchised: Stories of Life and Grief When an Ex-Spouse Dies offers an unprecedented anthology of never-before-published, first-person life histories by ex-spouses whose grief has endured as disenfranchised: socially unacknowledged, untold, and unrecognised. Each story of disenfranchised grief is fiercely honest and courageously made public. This anthology has no parallels in current texts, academic literature or mainstream publications. Contributors present personal histories, revealing that the dimensions of disenfranchised grief are as individual as the writers who have endured this neglected aspect of grief and bereavement. In many narratives, the healing power of their creative processes through art and poetry is further revealed. The anthology is compiled and edited by Peggy Sapphire, MS (Guidance and Counseling), a writer living in Vermont. Over the span of five years, through phone conversations and written communications, Ms. Sapphire established trusting relationships with the contributors, who, though choosing to submit their work, often struggled with reluctance, even dread, at revisiting previously private events in their lives and finally committing their stories to paper, and ultimately to publication. Each narrative is accompanied by a clinical commentary, written by Shirley Scott, MS, certified Thanatologist, which provides readers, whether academic, practitioner, student, or lay, with reflections on the issues and patterns of disenfranchised grief, as reflected by each narrative. Included in each commentary are bibliographic references for further and advanced study. The contributors represent an extraordinary range of professional achievements and academic credentials--well-published writers, poets, working artists, educators, academics, mental health practitioners, and health professionals.

Liberating Jonah

Liberating Jonah
Author: De La Torre, Miguel A.
Publisher: Orbis Books
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2015-04-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1608333434

When a reluctant Jonah finally entered Nineveh to announce God's grace to the powerful Assyrian empire, God brought about reconciliation between the oppressors and the oppressed. Our world today, inhabited by both oppressors and oppressed, is also in need of reconciliation--between different ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic levels, and gender and sexual orientations. Liberating Jonah describes the significant role that can be played by the underrepresented and oppressed as instruments of reconciliation today. --From publisher's description.

One Person, No Vote

One Person, No Vote
Author: Carol Anderson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2018-09-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1635571375

As featured in the documentary All In: The Fight for Democracy Finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Longlisted for the National Book Award in Nonfiction Named one of the Best Books of the Year by: Washington Post * Boston Globe * NPR* Bustle * BookRiot * New York Public Library From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, the startling--and timely--history of voter suppression in America, with a foreword by Senator Dick Durbin. In her New York Times bestseller White Rage, Carol Anderson laid bare an insidious history of policies that have systematically impeded black progress in America, from 1865 to our combustible present. With One Person, No Vote, she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision effectively allowed districts with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice. Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans.