Gatherings of mobility and immobility: itinerant “criminal tribes” and their containment by the Salvation Army in colonial South India

In retelling the history of “criminal tribe” settlements managed by the Salvation Army in Madras Presidency (colonial India) from 1911, I argue that neither the mobility–immobility relationship nor the compositional heterogeneity of (im)mobility practices can be adequately captured by relational dialecticism espoused by leading mobilities scholars. Rather than emerging as an opposition through dialectics, the relationship between (relative) mobility and containment may be characterized by overlapping hybridity and difference. This differential hybridity becomes apparent in two ways if mobility and containment are viewed as immanent gatherings of humans and nonhumans. First, the same entities may participate in gatherings of mobility and of containment, while producing different effects in each gathering. Here, nonhumans enter a gathering, and constitute (im)mobility practices, as actors that make history irreducibly differently from other actors that they may be entangled with. Second, modern technologies and amodern “institutions” may be indiscriminately drawn together in all gatherings

A concept/use of temporal Search Engine

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The Nature and Nurture of Sports Performance, Blog 1

Student blog posts from the Great VCU Bike Race Book

The Role of Cultural Competency on Treatment Adherence and Health Literacy for Persons of Color Living with HIV/AIDS

The Role of Cultural Competency on Treatment Adherence and Health Literacy for Persons of Color Living with HIV/AIDS Rohan Arora, Depts. of Psychology, Medical Humanities, & Chemistry, with Dr. Faye Pritchard, VCU Honors College For decades, the American medical establishment has been a notable perpetrator in the mass marginalization of minority groups, leading to a variety of health disparities. Given that the existing healthcare institution is not culturally equipped to serve the evolving American demographic, experts have called for the greater usage of cultural competency in medicine; however, little research has been done to better understand how the degree of cultural competency of a health-care provider impacts the complex disease management for those living with HIV/AIDS. The aim of this research is to better understand how cultural competency can impact the health literacy and treatment adherence for persons of color living with HIV/AIDS. In addition to considering what factors shape patient experience and expectations, the research explores how many socioeconomic and cultural factors lead to low treatment adherence and health literacy. Also, the research considers the nuance in the patient-provider relationship and explores tools, such as partnerships with existing community institutions, that may strengthen the relationship. In order to regain the trust lost in the medical establishment by persons of color living with HIV/AIDS, the research suggests that a healthcare provider ought to self-reflect about the cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic complexities in America that necessitate cultural competency. By practicing modernized cultural competency in medicine, healthcare providers can shape patient care and strengthen the patient-provider relationship, which may increase treatment adherence and health literacy rates for persons of color living with HIV/AIDS. Bringing attention to how cultural competency can impact treatment adherence and health literacy, the research urges the medical establishment to take educational and policy-related steps to effectively provide healthcare to historically underserved groups such as people of color living with HIV/AIDS.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1353/thumbnail.jp

Discordant connections

The importance of gender-equality and of women’s work in relation to the environment are considered to be crucial questions for development in ‘third world’ rural societies. ‘Development’ and a certain standard of welfare make these issues appear to be less urgent in a wealthier country like Sweden. In this paper I trace some of the contradictions and connections in the ways in which gender equality is conceptualised in women’s struggles vis á vis environmental issues in rural areas in Sweden and India. The paper throws light on two important insights: first, that in Sweden where gender equality has been actively pursued as the bedrock of modern societal organizing, the space to organize as women in relation to environmental issues was hedged around with ambiguities. Second, development discourses about equality and empowerment of oppressed third world women bear not only on how gender equality is conceptualised and practiced in the South but also shape the space for gender equality in the North. Analysing the two cases in relation to each other reveals the travel of ideas and conversations across distances. While ideas about the independent, empowered woman are used to deny agency to women’s collectives in India, gendered discrimination has taken different forms in Sweden, making it more difficult to contest. Understanding how this takes place opens an opportunity for interruption in an order and in a space that appears to have become narrower under the umbrella of development, welfare, and growth. It brings into question the category of development both in a Southern but especially so in a Northern context where the North and especially Sweden is taken as referent for questions of development and gender equality