Mixed Methods and Epistemologies for Studying Black Birthing Outcomes

Keywords: methods, epistemology, epistemic justice, black birthing, interdisciplinary
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Current climate-health-related work in the physical sciences – including geography, epidemiology, and meteorology – are almost entirely siloed to their individual disciplines with very little, if any, collaboration with humanities studies. My dissertation uses climate change-related health impacts which to discuss larger epistemological questions of how to center connections between different structural relationships to care to think about solidarity across justice movements. I propose to explore how various epistemologies think through questions surrounding Black birthing through a mixed methods approach. My dissertation asks: How do different epistemologies attempt to understand the role of environment on Black birthing outcomes? Specifically, I look methodologically to ask in what ways a mixed methods approach illuminates elements of these epistemologies to help us more holistically understand Black birthing in a way that cuts across disciplines. This project stands on the shoulders of scholars such as Katherine McKittrick and Eve Tuck who have both challenged scholars to adopt desire-based frameworks (in the words of Tuck) to center Black livingness (in the words of McKittrick) that goes beyond just swapping out a deficit-centered framework for a desire-based one, but instead requires an epistemological shift to thinking about research differently.