Popular culture would like us to believe that Black women are invincible. We don’t need help. We don’t need to be handled with tender love and care. Despite whatever trauma or abuse comes our way, we are indestructible. This is why the Welfare Queen stereotype is still so pervasive. Black women should bear the fullContinue reading “Myth of the Black Woman Superhero”
Category Archives: Research
Article Feature: It Takes a (Virtual) Village To Raise a Mom
Much of my mental health journey as a mother began with my introduction to peer support groups. I attended my first in-person bipolar support group at Mount Sinai hospital during my second trimester in 2019. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, I began attending support groups online. Now, I serve as a perinatal peerContinue reading “Article Feature: It Takes a (Virtual) Village To Raise a Mom”
My New Creative Endeavor: Producing an Autoethnographic Film
Living openly with bipolar disorder requires a continual “coming out” process in multiple aspects of my life. Lately, I have experienced this the most acutely in my work which is inseparable from my lived experience with mental health challenges. In addition to pursing a PhD in Anthropology, I am also a part of a nationally-recognizedContinue reading “My New Creative Endeavor: Producing an Autoethnographic Film”
A Global Nomad’s Relationship to Home
Although I was born in the United States, I didn’t live here until I was an adult. Tanzania was my first home where my Guyanese mother and Tanzanian-Indian father met and got married. My mother chose to give birth in the US where she had access to advanced medical facilities and the support of extendedContinue reading “A Global Nomad’s Relationship to Home”
Experiments in Ethnographic Poetry
The further I progress with my PhD, the more I realize ways I can bring my whole self to my work. As an undergraduate in the Mellon Mays program preparing me for graduate school as a minority in academia, I developed the false assumption that academics are supposed to present themselves in a particular way.Continue reading “Experiments in Ethnographic Poetry”
What is a Mental Health Doula?
During my training as a birth and postpartum doula, I received little education on perinatal mental health. When mental health was addressed in the postpartum doula training, the acronym PMADs was thrown around as a catch-all phrase for Postpartum Mood and Anxiety Disorders. In a previous post titled Language Matters: Perinatal vs Postpartum, I articulateContinue reading “What is a Mental Health Doula?”
Thinking with Laura Briggs: The Race of Hysteria
For most of history, hysteria was a physical and mental condition that had no cure and it was associated with the uterus. It was believed to cause a wide range of symptoms including, but not limited to shortness of breath, anxiety, insomnia, fainting, amnesia, nausea, paralysis, seizures, spasms, convulsive fits, deafness, hallucinations, infertility, and painfulContinue reading “Thinking with Laura Briggs: The Race of Hysteria”
Thinking with Ashanté Reese: Grief as a Black Feminist Methodology
In my blog post Peer Ethnography: My Theory & Method, I think through my decolonized approach to research inspired by Black feminist theory. An example of this is the way Ashanté Reese discusses grief as methodology in her ethnography Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. As a mental state andContinue reading “Thinking with Ashanté Reese: Grief as a Black Feminist Methodology”
Healing Journey: Mad Pride
As I learn more about the various experiences of people with mental illness, the more I appreciate the complexities we encounter when naming ourselves. Out of the global psychiatric survivor movement of the 1980s and 90s emerged different language to describe our experiences as survivors of psychiatric abuse, ex-patients who recovered or were misdiagnosed, andContinue reading “Healing Journey: Mad Pride”
Peer Ethnography: My Theory & Method
During a workshop on how to conduct “liberated research projects,” Dr. Nadine Naber walked the class through an exercise to help us students and emerging scholars personalize our own theories and methodologies. After thinking about what makes my research distinct, I came to the terms “peer ethnography” and “lived experience research.” This is because ofContinue reading “Peer Ethnography: My Theory & Method”
Nadia Naomi Mbonde 