What We Not Finna Do: Respectfully Collaborating with Skinfolk and Kinfolk in Black Feminist Participatory Action Research

In this article, we (Black community social psychologists and community organizers with over 40 years of collaborative research experience) share the successes and challenges of using Black Feminist Participatory Action Research to actualize The Community Engaged Research Academy (CERA). CERA was a two-year multi-method project (utilizing community dialogues, focus groups, surveys, PhotoVoice, body mapping, and space mapping) aimed at teaching Bronx patients the language and ethics of research. CERA did not merely teach research methods for its own sake. It redressed research and schooling as sites of trauma and humiliation for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) persons by nurturing the capacity of participants to develop research projects without researchers. We scrutinize the missteps and accomplishments of the CERA project to offer a tangible example of what attending to racial justice in community psychological inquiry looks like from all facets. Our imagined audience of readers is composed of burgeoning and veteran Black community psychologists, members of community-based organizations, and members of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). We write to this audience mindful that analyzing what went wrong, and right would be instructive to academicians and practitioners, about how to ethically and respectfully collaborate with skinfolk and kinfolk. We start by interweaving a brief engagement in critical reflexivity about our prior experiences with Black participatory research as next generation Black scholars/organizers, which grounds our theoretical framework. We move to a discussion of community-academic partnerships (CAPs) within Black communities, where our engagement with the scholarship that has influenced our work refuses the traditional structure of a literature review. Historically, CAPs between Black professionals (researchers, doctors, nurses, educators, social workers, etc.) and Black communities have not always begun or ended well (Brown, 2017; 2019; Chilisa, 2009; Freimuth et al., 2001; Guishard et al, 2005; Guishard, 2009; 2015; Heyward, 2019; Jordan et al., 2001; Smith & Guishard, 2017; Suarez-Balcazar, Harper, & Lewis, 2005). Too often, the epistemes, theories, methodologies, and approaches to community engagement Black community psychologists learn, from largely whitestream institutions, are imbued with scientific racism, are extractive, and some likely with exploitative intentions. This past work has done more harm than good and has made our kinfolk distrustful of us and our intentions. We share our confrontations with ways of being, we had to leave behind and adopt to accomplish the CERA project. Some of the lessons we learned included centering Black community psychology, embracing critical race praxis, naming sacred moments that were excluded from the purview of research, and honoring the complex stories Black patients shared with us with hermeneutics of love (Guishard, 2016; hooks, 2001a; hooks, 2001b; Laura, 2013). We move to analyzing moments within the Community Engaged Research Academy that taught us much about the importance of healing-centered engagement. We offer: unwaveringly committing to loving all and not some Black folx, checking your professional humility before you wreck the project, being of service before making an ask, developing community agreements, articulating refusals, shared decision making, returning findings quickly, and shared ownership of the products of our research as ethical levers to readers. It is important to note that in addition to being evaluated by our institution’s IRBs, the CERA project was also constantly evaluated by members of a local community-based IRB. The Bronx Community Research Review Board (The BxCRRB) ethically assessed the extent to which we attended to the project’s focus and remained accountable to Black and Brown Bronx patients. We conclude by sharing the community agreements, template for our research presentations, and an evaluation tool we developed, with the BxCRRB, with hopes that they: 1) will expand and build upon critical race community psychological interventions, 2) can be reused and remixed by other CAPs between Black community psychologists and Black communities

What We Not Finna Do: Respectfully Collaborating with Skinfolk and Kinfolk in Black Feminist Participatory Action Research

In this article, we (Black community social psychologists and community organizers with over 40 years of collaborative research experience) share the successes and challenges of using Black Feminist Participatory Action Research to actualize The Community Engaged Research Academy (CERA). CERA was a two-year multi-method project (utilizing community dialogues, focus groups, surveys, PhotoVoice, body mapping, and space mapping) aimed at teaching Bronx patients the language and ethics of research. CERA did not merely teach research methods for its own sake. It redressed research and schooling as sites of trauma and humiliation for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) persons by nurturing the capacity of participants to develop research projects without researchers. We scrutinize the missteps and accomplishments of the CERA project to offer a tangible example of what attending to racial justice in community psychological inquiry looks like from all facets. Our imagined audience of readers is composed of burgeoning and veteran Black community psychologists, members of community-based organizations, and members of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). We write to this audience mindful that analyzing what went wrong, and right would be instructive to academicians and practitioners, about how to ethically and respectfully collaborate with skinfolk and kinfolk. We start by interweaving a brief engagement in critical reflexivity about our prior experiences with Black participatory research as next generation Black scholars/organizers, which grounds our theoretical framework. We move to a discussion of community-academic partnerships (CAPs) within Black communities, where our engagement with the scholarship that has influenced our work refuses the traditional structure of a literature review. Historically, CAPs between Black professionals (researchers, doctors, nurses, educators, social workers, etc.) and Black communities have not always begun or ended well (Brown, 2017; 2019; Chilisa, 2009; Freimuth et al., 2001; Guishard et al, 2005; Guishard, 2009; 2015; Heyward, 2019; Jordan et al., 2001; Smith & Guishard, 2017; Suarez-Balcazar, Harper, & Lewis, 2005). Too often, the epistemes, theories, methodologies, and approaches to community engagement Black community psychologists learn, from largely whitestream institutions, are imbued with scientific racism, are extractive, and some likely with exploitative intentions. This past work has done more harm than good and has made our kinfolk distrustful of us and our intentions. We share our confrontations with ways of being, we had to leave behind and adopt to accomplish the CERA project. Some of the lessons we learned included centering Black community psychology, embracing critical race praxis, naming sacred moments that were excluded from the purview of research, and honoring the complex stories Black patients shared with us with hermeneutics of love (Guishard, 2016; hooks, 2001a; hooks, 2001b; Laura, 2013). We move to analyzing moments within the Community Engaged Research Academy that taught us much about the importance of healing-centered engagement. We offer: unwaveringly committing to loving all and not some Black folx, checking your professional humility before you wreck the project, being of service before making an ask, developing community agreements, articulating refusals, shared decision making, returning findings quickly, and shared ownership of the products of our research as ethical levers to readers. It is important to note that in addition to being evaluated by our institution’s IRBs, the CERA project was also constantly evaluated by members of a local community-based IRB. The Bronx Community Research Review Board (The BxCRRB) ethically assessed the extent to which we attended to the project’s focus and remained accountable to Black and Brown Bronx patients. We conclude by sharing the community agreements, template for our research presentations, and an evaluation tool we developed, with the BxCRRB, with hopes that they: 1) will expand and build upon critical race community psychological interventions, 2) can be reused and remixed by other CAPs between Black community psychologists and Black communities

A systematic review of positron emission tomography (PET) and positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) for the diagnosis of breast cancer recurrence.

addresses: West Midlands Health Technology Assessment Collaboration, Unit of Public Health, Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.types: Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; ReviewPublished version. Copyright © 2010 NIHR Health Technology Assessment ProgrammeBreast cancer (BC) accounts for one-third of all cases of cancer in women in the UK. Current strategies for the detection of BC recurrence include computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and bone scintigraphy. Positron emission tomography (PET) and, more recently, positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) are technologies that have been shown to have increasing relevance in the detection and management of BC recurrence

Small Change: Economics and the British coin-tree

This is the accepted manuscript for the following article: Ceri Houlbrook, “Small Change: Economics and the British coin-tree”, Post Medieval Archaeology, Vol. 49(1), June 2015. The final published version can be found at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1179/0079423615Z.00000000074 © Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology 2015Throughout the c.2000 year period coins have been circulated in Britain, they have also been ritually employed, most notably as votive deposits. Focusing specifically on the understudied custom of the British coin-tree, whereby coins are ritually embedded into the barks of trees, this paper considers the coin’s role and applicability as a deposit. It aims to demonstrate that our understanding of the coin’s past, present, and future ritual employment is not only aided by a consideration of economics and the coin’s secular function; it would be utterly incomplete without it.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Which interventions offer best value for money in primary prevention of cardiovascular disease?

BackgroundDespite many decades of declining mortality rates in the Western world, cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide. In this research we evaluate the optimal mix of lifestyle, pharmaceutical and population-wide interventions for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.Methods and FindingsIn a discrete time Markov model we simulate the ischaemic heart disease and stroke outcomes and cost impacts of intervention over the lifetime of all Australian men and women, aged 35 to 84 years, who have never experienced a heart disease or stroke event. Best value for money is achieved by mandating moderate limits on salt in the manufacture of bread, margarine and cereal. A combination of diuretic, calcium channel blocker, ACE inhibitor and low-cost statin, for everyone with at least 5% five-year risk of cardiovascular disease, is also cost-effective, but lifestyle interventions aiming to change risky dietary and exercise behaviours are extremely poor value for money and have little population health benefit.ConclusionsThere is huge potential for improving efficiency in cardiovascular disease prevention in Australia. A tougher approach from Government to mandating limits on salt in processed foods and reducing excessive statin prices, and a shift away from lifestyle counselling to more efficient absolute risk-based prescription of preventive drugs, could cut health care costs while improving population health.<br /

Cultural geographies of extinction: animal culture amongst Scottish ospreys

This paper explores cultural geographies of extinction. I trace the decline of the Scottish osprey during the nineteenth century, and its enduring, haunting presence in the landscape today. Taking inspiration from the environmental humanities, extinction is framed as an event affecting losses that exceed comprehension in terms merely of biological species numbers and survival rates. Disavowing the ‘species thinking’ of contemporary conservation biopolitics, the osprey’s extinction story pays attention to the worth of ‘animal cultures’. Drawing a hybrid conceptual framework from research in the environmental humanities, ‘speculative’ ethology and more-than-human geographies, I champion an experimental attention to the cultural geographies of animals in terms of historically contingent, communally shared, spatial practices and attachments. In doing so, I propose nonhuman cultural geographies as assemblages that matter, and which are fundamentally at stake in the face of extinction

The Natural History Museum Fossil Porifera Collection

This article provides updated information about the Porifera Collection at The Natural History Museum (NHM), London. With very little information available regarding fossil sponge digitization or any similar initiative, this paper covers the type and figured specimens and drawer label content data of the Porifera Collection and also describes the collection and its research potential. With approximately 71,000 specimens, of which more than 60% are Mesozoic, the NHM holdings offer the best Mesozoic sponge collection in the world and one of the most important due to its breadth and depth. The Porifera Collection covers all stratigraphic periods and all taxonomic groups and includes almost 3000 cited and figured specimens including types. Although most of the specimens come from the British Isles, worldwide samples are also present, with abundant specimens from other Commonwealth countries and from Antarctica.The attached document is the author(’s’) final accepted/submitted version of the journal article. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it