Racial Health Equity and Black (Non?)Being: Exploring the Uses of Afropessimism in Anti-Racist Health Praxis - Tanisha Spratt
| Dates: | 15 May 2025 |
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| Times: | 13:00 - 14:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
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In this CoDE lunchtime seminar, Tanisha Spratt from Kings College London shares her research.
Afropessimism is a critical framework for understanding anti-Black violence and its entrenchment in historical and systemic structures that perpetuate Black subjugation. By conceptualising Black life as “non-life,” afropessimism elucidates how anti-Black violence contributes to racial health disparities, particularly through increased susceptibility to poor health outcomes and premature death. This framework has potential utility in articulating the roots of racial health inequities in both acute and chronic illnesses. However, afropessimism’s foundational assertion—that Black people are not only “non-human” but also antithetical to the human—poses challenges for anti-racist efforts that advocate for the recognition of Black humanity to advance health equity. This paper critically examines the role of afropessimism in racial health equity work, emphasising the divergent approaches within its traditional and indeterminate schools. While these streams highlight the pervasive systemic inequities that harm Black populations, they also present tensions by framing Black (non-)life as both worthy of mourning and as outside humanist frameworks. This paper underscores afropessimism’s contradictions in addressing racial health inequities, suggesting that its insistence on reconfiguring Blackness outside normative paradigms complicates its alignment with strategies aimed at promoting health equity and a global recognition of Black humanity.
More details to follow.
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