The book launch for Decolonising Public Health through Praxis -The Impact on Black Health in the UK
Contents
On 24th March 2023, MaCTRI (MEaP Academy Community Training and Research Institute) hosted a book launch for the first publication from its MaSPP (MEaP Academy Scholars Publishing Programme) for the Palgrave book series. The book Decolonising Public Health through Praxis -The Impact on Black Health in the UK written by Dr Ornette (MaCTRI’s Head of Institute) and Dr Faye Bruce (Director of CAHN, the Caribbean and African Health Network) was well received.
During the evening, authors Dr Ornette Clennon and Dr Faye Bruce shared some of the challenges they faced delivering the study. They also took time to expound on how the book provides an interdisciplinary analysis of UK African Diaspora health seekers and their sustained health inequalities in the health market. It translates their voices into a decolonial praxis, where their experiences illuminate the hidden factors that have blighted change in health outcomes for these communities. Dr Ornette shared how book excavates and breaks down the nature of hidden historical patterns of behaviour that comprise behind health inequalities, using the lenses of decolonial and critical race studies.
The event provided a great opportunity for networking as it was attended by diverse NHS professionals as well as members of the Caribbean & African Health Network as well as international partners of MEaP who joined online. Guests to the book launch had opportunity to discover more about the book during the ‘question and answer’ session with the authors. They also had opportunity to get their hard copies of Decolonising Public Health through Praxis -The Impact on Black Health signed
About the book series
MaCTRI has partnered with the publishers Palgrave Sociology to publish a book series discussing decolonial issues of praxis. Decolonising Public Health through Praxis -The Impact on Black Health by Dr Ornette Clennon and Dr Faye Bruce is the first volume. The challenge of the series is to convey the lively and diverse black intellectual activity happening in community spaces.
This series provides open, frank and accessible discussion about decolonial issues of praxis found on the ground from those who work in various community roles and provides a nuanced academic analysis and reflection of the ideas presented in the first half of the chapter (especially useful for an academic readership). Academics will gain a closer understanding of how decolonial theory manifests in real world settings outside of academia, influencing community development. The challenge of the series is to convey the lively and diverse black intellectual activity happening in community spaces that in terms of epistemology, unwittingly continues the academic decolonial dialogue in terms of application to real world social justice issues. E Many activists have lost the connection with (or are not fully aware of) pre-1980s Black public intellectual activity around social justice, as much of it at a theoretical level now takes place in academia. There are scholar- activists who are indeed attempting to bridge this gap but the vast majority of them are university-based looking out rather than community-based looking in. This series attempts to address this balance
From Palgrave Macmillan
Call for book proposals
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan has capacity to publish more volumes in this series named Palgrave Studies in Decolonisation and Grassroots Black Organic Intellectualism. If you are interested in publishing in the series please contact Sharla Plant (sharla.plant@palgrave.com) or Dr Ornette Clennon (ornette@meap.org.uk).
About MaSPP (MEaP Academy Scholars Publishing Programme)
Guests at the launch also learnt about MEaP Academy Scholars Publishing Programme (MaSPP); the publishing programme delivered by MaCTRI (MEaP Academy Community Training & Research Institute (www.meap.org.uk/research/) in partnership with Palgrave Macmillan. Scholars on this programme are supported to write a book for the Palgrave Studies in Decolonisation and Grassroots Black Organic Intellectualism series; which can then be used to earn a PhD at a participating university (e.g., University of Portsmouth) using the PhD via publication route. Book contributors will be graduate scholar-activists (in any discipline) collaborating with communities who are interested in interrogating their Decolonial engaged practices.
Stuart Taylor, a current scholar on this two year programme, shared his experience so far:
My experience of the programme as an author and a scholar has been very demanding. It’s been very rigorous as a process, it’s a robust process. I really welcome that, I embrace that as I’m very grateful for that. Being a writer is a bit of a challenging task as we are always looking for a reason not to ‘get down to it’ so being a scholar in an academic programme with distinct deadlines is really helpful, really helpful! There is no reason not to ‘crack on’ with the work basically. The programme had given me great inspiration and motivation. I feel very safe, like I am being held by some very caring, knowledgeable and experienced folk; this takes a huge weight off my mind and enables me to really focus on the main task at hand, which is the research and the writing of the book itself. I focus in getting these words out. I don’t think I could be in a better place. I feel confident, supported, understood and very reassured and energised being on this programme.
MaSPP scholars are mentored through their writing process by the Dr Ornette Clennon the series editor.
About the Series Editor – Dr Ornette Clennon
Dr Ornette D Clennon is Head of MaCTRI and Director of Research (amongst other key roles at MEaP). Dr Ornette also coordinates our international partnerships and is Visiting Professor at the Federal University of the Amazonas (UFAM). He has also held the role of Manchester Metropolitan University’s Visiting Research Fellow and a critical race scholar in The Research Centre for Social Change: Community Wellbeing, where he led the Critical Race and Ethnicity Research Cluster. Dr Ornette also led MEaP’s research, engagement strategies and research relationship with Manchester Metropolitan University. Ornette writes for Media Diversified and open Democracy UK and is a Public Engagement Ambassador for the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE). Ornette is widely published and his books can be found via this link.
Ornette is a community activist at local, national and international levels and works with the Ubele Initiative, Locality, Alci Matos Community (Manaus, Brazil), IDPAD Alliance of CSOs (United Nations), MACC, Making Education a Priority (MEaP), Black British Academics and the National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education. Ornette’s enterprise and activism work has been recognised with the NCCPE Beacons New Partnerships Award.
If you would like to submit a book proposal for the series email Dr Ornette Clennon (ornette@meap.org.uk).