Forging connections: anthologies, arts collectives, and the politics of inclusion

The changing social and political landscape of twentieth-century Britain catalysed a remarkable rise in collaborative activity by artists and activists of black and Asian heritage. Creative communities began to gather in both local and regional contexts, with the aim of sharing resources and securing an audience. This chapter records some of these many activities, tracing the groups’ genesis, manifest objectives, and key contributions. It argues that anthologising should be understood as a specifically motivated activity. Literary anthologies of poetry and fiction served to showcase the diversity of contemporary writing, while also suggesting its coherence. Drawing on the concept of “strategic essentialism” elucidated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, I show that the anthology acts to ensure the visibility of a group, bannered as a unified and singly-titled selection of texts, while also insisting on the differences within: the heterogeneous multiplicity of black and Asian British experiences and creative practices

'Vernacular Voices: Black British Poetry'

ABSTRACT Black British poetry is the province of experimenting with voice and recording rhythms beyond the iambic pentameter. Not only in performance poetry and through the spoken word, but also on the page, black British poetry constitutes and preserves a sound archive of distinct linguistic varieties. In Slave Song (1984) and Coolie Odyssey (1988), David Dabydeen employs a form of Guyanese Creole in order to linguistically render and thus commemorate the experience of slaves and indentured labourers, respectively, with the earlier collection providing annotated translations into Standard English. James Berry, Louise Bennett, and Valerie Bloom adapt Jamaican Patois to celebrate Jamaican folk culture and at times to represent and record experiences and linguistic interactions in the postcolonial metropolis. Grace Nichols and John Agard use modified forms of Guyanese Creole, with Nichols frequently constructing gendered voices whilst Agard often celebrates linguistic playfulness. The borders between linguistic varieties are by no means absolute or static, as the emergence and marked growth of ‘London Jamaican’ (Mark Sebba) indicates. Asian British writer Daljit Nagra takes liberties with English for different reasons. Rather than having recourse to established Creole languages, and blending them with Standard English, his heteroglot poems frequently emulate ‘Punglish’, the English of migrants whose first language is Punjabi. Whilst it is the language prestige of London Jamaican that has been significantly enhanced since the 1990s, a fact not only confirmed by linguistic research but also by its transethnic uses both in the streets and on the page, Nagra’s substantial success and the mainstream attention he receives also indicate the clout of vernacular voices in poetry. They have the potential to connect with oral traditions and cultural memories, to record linguistic varieties, and to endow ‘street cred’ to authors and texts. In this chapter, these double-voiced poetic languages are also read as signs of resistance against residual monologic ideologies of Englishness. © Book proposal (02/2016): The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing p. 27 of 4

Quality of life and its determinants in subfertile patients seeking fertility care at two urban fertility Centres in Nairobi

Introduction: Subfertility affects one in six couples worldwide with devastating psychosocial consequences impacting on quality of life (QoL). Assessment of QoL and institution of appropriate interventions in subfertility patients complements clinical management by reducing the psycho-social effects of subfertility and its treatment. No local or regional data exist on impact of subfertility on QoL using a fertility-specific QoL assessment tool. Objective: The study sought to determine the QoL of subfertile patients seeking fertility care at two urban fertility centres in Nairobi using the Fertility Quality of Life (FertiQoL) tool. Methods: This was a cross sectional study. Subfertile women of reproductive age (18-49 years) and their partners attending fertility clinics were recruited. Study participants completed the self-administered FertiQoL questionnaire, an internationally validated subfertility-specific tool consisting of 36 questions each on a five-point Likert scale. It assessed QoL in four core subscales (emotional, relational, social and mind/body) and two treatment subscales (tolerability and environment) with higher scores denoting better QoL. Mean FertiQoL scores and standard deviation (SD) were calculated for the total FertiQoL and subscales. Univariate analysis was used to examine association between age, sex, education status, comorbid conditions, duration of subfertility and cause of subfertility with QoL. Results: A total of 104 participants were recruited. The mean total FertiQoL score was 65.7 (SD=14.5). The mean Core FertiQoL score was 63.9 (SD=16.7). The emotional domain had the lowest mean score (57.5) while the relational domain had the highest mean score (72.5). Age less than 35 years was associated with lower emotional (P\u3c0.04) and mind/body (P\u3c0.03) scores. Previous live birth was associated with higher mind/body score (P\u3c0.01). University education and previous pregnancy were associated with higher treatment environment (P\u3c0.01) and treatment tolerability (P\u3c0.005) scores respectively. Sex, cause of subfertility and type of treatment had no impact on QoL domain scores. No factor showed significant association with the total FertiQoL score. Conclusion: Study provided baseline QoL for the study population which is similar to that seen in other regions. Age more than 35 years, university education, previous live birth and previous v pregnancy had positive impact on FertiQoL subscales. There is need to assess QoL in subfertility patients using a reliable disease-specific tool such as FertiQoL

Morbosità da parto cesareo multiplo

Obiettivo: quantificare il rischio materno associato a parti cesarei (PC) multipli e determinare se il terzo cesareo definisce una soglia per l’aumento della morbosità. Metodi: dal gennaio 1997 al gennaio 2002, le cartelle cliniche relative a 3.191 donne che avevano partorito con taglio cesareo al nostro centro di riferimento ostetrico, sono state esaminate per alcuni indicatori scelti di morbosità materna. Le donne sono state assegnate a diversi gruppi in base al numero di PC, e la frequenza di ciascun indicatore è stata determinata. Per confrontare il rischio nei vari gruppi e rispetto al terzo cesareo, è stato poi ricavato, tra le donne raggruppate in base al numero di PC consecutivi, un punteggio composito per ogni indicatore. Risultati: sulla base di tutti gli indicatori studiati, la morbosità aumentava con i successivi PC fino a tutto il terzo. Rispetto a quest’ultimo, tuttavia, il rischio di morbosità importante risultava significativamente più elevato con il quinto, e molto peggio con il sesto per quanto riguarda placenta previa [odds ratio (OR) = 3,8; intervallo di confidenza al 95% (IC 95%) = 1,9-7,4], placente accreta (OR = 6,1; IC 95% = 2,0-18,4) e isterectomia (OR = 5,9; IC 95% = 1,5-24,4). Ma il terzo e il quarto PC comportavano lo stesso rischio di importante morbosità per placenta previa (OR = 1,4; IC 95% = 0,8-2,2), placenta accreta (OR = 1,0; IC 95% = 0,3- 2,9) e isterectomia (OR = 0,3; IC 95% = 0,0-2,7). Conclusioni: il terzo cesareo non definisce una soglia per l’aumento del rischio materno. La morbosità complessiva aumenta invece continuamente a ogni successivo PC. Tuttavia, in particolare per la morbosità importante dovuta alla triade placenta previa, placenta accreta e isterectomia durante il PC, il quarto PC comporta lo stesso rischio del terzo