Part 2 of the Invisible Women series aims to highlight the dangers of using White people as the default reference group in research (Part I). I will use body ideal/image research to illustrate how a default White reference group can erase the experiences of racially marginalized folks. It is also important to acknowledge that much…
Author: Anita Annan
Anita Annan is a second-year Socio-Cultural Anthropology student at the University of Washington. She is interested in exploring a variety of topics, including but not limited to cultural dissonance, intergenerational trauma, collective trauma, Black diaspora, racialization, migrant populations, mental illness, post-colonialism, neo-colonialism, health disparities, state-sanctioned violence, theorizing at what seems like the end of the world.
Invisible Women: Research, Erasure, and Racism
This paper is a brief consideration of how the construction of research, such as using whiteness as a reference point, can be imbued with racism, resulting in the erasure of health issues in certain communities. I will use body image/ideal research as an example of how research practices embedded with racism can lead to…
Are These “Truths” Self-Evident: An Unsettling of the Terms That Define Us Part I
Human is not a neutral term. It is laced with socio-historical positionality that masquerades as neutral, universal, and even innocuous. What exactly do we mean when we invoke terms like human, humanity, or any other derivative? Suppose humanity is, in fact, universal, neutral, and innocuous. Why can people be rendered inhumane, commit crimes against humanity,…