As part of the Lunchtime Seminar Series, the African Centre for Migration & Society invites you to a seminar titled “The Personal is Political”: Engaging in arts-based teaching and research methods to center wellness in classroom and community spaces by LeConté Dill (New York University College of Global Public Health).

This seminar is framed by the popular saying from the U.S. Student Movement and Second-Wave Feminist Movement of the late1960s—“the personal is political”—to explore the connections between personal experiences and larger socio-political structures. Informed by the personal experiences of stress and trauma among students and research participants, this seminar will delve into how scholars can engage with literature, music, and visual art to not only deconstruct such trauma but also to map out multiple practices of wellness. Such arts-based knowledges serve as rich examples, particularly for public health practitioners and migration scholars, to critically examine our own analyses and role in engendering personal and collective healing, health, and wellness. Participants in the seminar will be invited to use their own experiential knowledges and seminar discussion topics to create a brief poem, song, or femifesto to generate new insights regarding teaching and research collaboration and dissemination strategies.

Biography

Dr. LeConté Dill is the Director of Public Health Practice and a Clinical Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the New York University College of Global Public Health. She is a transdisciplinary scholar focused on combatting health inequities and fostering protective factors among people of color living in urban spaces. Guided by Black Feminist epistemologies, Dr. Dill engages in qualitative, arts-based, and community-accountable research methods to examine the relationship between urban adolescent development and multiple levels of violence. Her work has been published in such journals as the American Journal of Public Health, Health Education & Behavior, The Ethnographic Edge, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, and Agenda. Additionally, since 2015, Dr. Dill has been a Research Associate at the African Centre for Migration & Society at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her recent scholarship documents the spectrum of trauma, police violence, community resilience, and collective healing.

Date: Tuesday 19 March 2019

Time: 12.45 -13.45

Venue: ACMS Seminar Room 2163, South East Wing, Second Floor, Solomon Mahlangu House, University of the Witwatersrand East Campus