Legitimacy is an overlooked precondition for a tactic's availability within social movement repertoires. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 37 Movement for Black Lives activists in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, this article identifies a three-step process through which activists legitimize riots. First, activists reclassify riots as protest by lumping them with revered tactics, thereby splitting them from criminality. Second, activists engage in moral legitimation: they acknowledge the harm riots can cause to Black communities but frame them as justified counterviolence to state repression. Third, activists use instrumental legitimation. Despite potential reputational risks, they argue that riots impose costs on capitalism, delegitimize the state and lend credibility to subsequent nonviolent protests. By tracing how activists legitimate a controversial movement tactic, this article argues that legitimation work shapes tactical availability. This challenges views of the repertoire of contention as a fixed toolkit from which activists choose tactics they regard as strategically effective or aligned with their collective identities.
Black women have a long history of engaging in activism and community advocacy as both a political imperative and a survival strategy (Hill Collins, 2000; Ransby, 2003). Activism may confer psychological benefits such as increased meaning in life, identity affirmation, and social connection (Hope et al., 2019; Klar and Kasser, 2009); simultaneously, activism can involve sustained stress exposure, burnout, and heightened vulnerability to surveillance and (re)traumatization (Gorski, 2019). Biological indicators offer one avenue for examining how social conditions are embodied particularly when psychosocial experiences involve chronic threat, vigilance, and cumulative stress exposure. Given growing attention to activism as a health-relevant practice, this study is framed though an intersectional and critical medical anthropology lens to explore how activism may relate to both psychosocial and biological stress processes among Black women. Using an embedded mixed-methods pilot design, this study evaluated the feasibility of assessing psychosocial indicators and the Conserved Transcriptional Response to Adversity (CTRA) at baseline (T1) and ~2-month follow-up (T2) during a self-selected intentional activism period among Black women, with baseline semi-structured interviews contextualizing interpretation of T1→T2 patterns. Participants (N = 29; M age = 39.4 years, SD = 11.7; range = 21-63) completed online surveys, a baseline interview, and coached dried blood spot (DBS) collection at T1, then completed follow-up surveys and DBS collection at T2. Analyses followed a three-part workflow: (1) feasibility metrics (enrollment/retention and useable DBS returns), (2) within-person quantitative change (paired-samples t tests for psychosocial measures; mixed-effects linear models of a 53-gene CTRA set), and (3) thematic analysis of baseline interviews with integration via joint display (convergence/complementarity/divergence). Procedures supported remote biobehavioral assessment; useable DBS/CTRA data were available for most participants (T1 n = 28; T2 n = 27). Psychosocial scores decreased from T1 to T2 for psychological distress, activist orientation, and meaning in life (presence and search), with activist identity/commitment also decreasing but not reaching conventional thresholds. At the sample level, mean CTRA showed no net change from T1 to T2; however, within-person increases in activist identity/commitment and increases in search for meaning were associated with more favorable CTRA change. Baseline qualitative themes (Activism's Paradox; Identity Dialectics; Resistance and Restoration; Community-Rooted Well-being) highlighted co-occurring strain, meaning, identity negotiation under misogynoir, and relational coping infrastructure. Findings support feasibility and provide hypothesis-generating evidence that biobehavioral responses may be contingent on identity and meaning processes rather than uniform mean shifts in a heterogeneous activism window.
This article examines how medical secrecy, family silence, and nascent activism produce distinct spatial-cultural regimes that shape health outcomes, care pathways, and health inequities for intersex people in Chile. It contributes a spatial-analytic framework to medical anthropology debates on clinical secrecy, contested diagnostic nomenclature, and epistemic injustice in healthcare. Multi-sited reflexive ethnography was conducted in Chile between October 2020 and December 2023, primarily in Santiago. The study draws on 30 semi-structured interviews-14 with intersex individuals (aged 19-45), of whom one additionally provided a life history interview; 5 specialist physicians, 7 parents/guardians, 2 academic researchers, 1 government official, and 1 international activist-supplemented by approximately 340 h of participant observation across virtual, institutional, domestic, and café-based settings. Analysis followed a constructivist grounded theory approach. Medical institutions, families, and activist organizations produce distinct 'geographies of secrecy' that render intersex bodies selectively visible and impose specific health consequences: clinical spaces generate epistemic injustice through information hoarding and paternalistic consent practices; family spaces enforce silence that isolates individuals from diagnosis, community, and healthcare; activist spaces offer collective recognition while simultaneously producing new exclusions. The concept of 'calibrated disclosure' captures how intersex people strategically manage visibility across spatial contexts with direct implications for healthcare access and wellbeing. The article introduces 'embodied accountability' as a methodological principle for reflexive research with small, geographically concentrated marginalized communities. Findings highlight the need for healthcare systems to address not only clinical protocols but the spatial-institutional conditions that produce epistemic injustice and impede informed consent for intersex people.
Background This qualitative study aims to assess the knowledge, awareness, attitudes, beliefs, and perceived barriers related to cancer prevention and screening among Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers across three Indian states (Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Meghalaya). Methods Focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with ASHA workers using a semi-structured guide covering awareness of cancer symptoms, screening practices, risk perception, and cultural beliefs. The study included a total of 90 ASHA workers, of whom 50 were from Ludhiana, 25 from Uttar Pradesh, and 15 from Meghalaya. Data were thematically analyzed using ATLAS.ti software (Scientific Software Development GmbH, Berlin, Germany). Themes were coded across categories, including general awareness, screening behavior, personal experience, trusted information sources, and community recommendations. Results ASHAs demonstrated partial but varied knowledge of cancer symptoms, with higher awareness of oral cancer compared to breast and cervical cancers. Key barriers to screening included fear of infection, stigma, lack of facility availability, and sociocultural myths. Despite recognizing the benefits of early detection, most ASHAs had not undergone screening themselves. Personal experience with cancer cases led to greater engagement. ASHAs suggested community-based interventions such as free screening camps, collaboration with religious centers, and enhanced government support. Conclusion While ASHAs have the potential to serve as change agents for cancer control at the grassroots level, their knowledge and practices are constrained by systemic, educational, and cultural barriers. Strengthening their capacity through standardized oncology training, improving primary healthcare infrastructure, and integrating noncommunicable disease (NCD) services into Health and Wellness Centers are key steps toward improving cancer outcomes in India.
This study aims to explore the factors influencing the performance motivation of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) across four Indian states with different incentive models. A mixed-methods study was conducted between March and November 2022, which assessed ASHA motivation across four incentive systems: only performance-based (Meghalaya), fixed top-up (Rajasthan), variable top-up (Chhattisgarh), and fixed incentive (Andhra Pradesh), selected through state consultations. Quantitatively, 1200 ASHAs were surveyed, and descriptive and bivariate analyses were conducted in SPSS 26 and Excel. Qualitatively, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with ASHAs and health system personnel, with data analyzed using manual thematic analysis. Data quality was ensured through validated tools and regular triangulation to enhance reliability and consistency. The study found that financial incentives were just one factor affecting ASHA motivation. Nonmonetary factors, both intrinsic (self-motivation, altruism, social responsibility) and extrinsic (career progression, support, work environment), played significant roles. ASHAs in Chhattisgarh showed the highest motivation despite receiving lower financial incentives compared to other states. The qualitative data supported these findings, highlighting the importance of nonmonetary incentives in driving motivation. The results suggest that ASHA motivation can be enhanced by combining both monetary and nonmonetary incentives. A performance-based incentive with a variable top-up model appears effective, but state-level adaptations based on sociocultural contexts are crucial. Given ASHAs' critical role in delivering government health programs, sustained efforts to boost their motivation are essential to improving primary healthcare delivery.
In this article, I explore how 36 Norwegian anti-racist activists of colour negotiate emotions when engaging with the white majority population. Much recent research on racist ideology draws on Bonilla-Silva's framework of colour-blindness, arguing that the white majority nowadays is more likely to deny systemic racism. However, few studies have explored the relationship between micro-level interactions and colour-blind ideology beyond the realm of language. Using Ahmed's theory on affective economies along with decolonial perspectives on emotions, I empirically demonstrate how an unequal distribution of emotions across racial divides works as a central mechanism in the development of colour-blind ideology. This finding reveals the need to incorporate the role of emotions within the literature on colour-blindness more broadly, as similar tendencies may be prevalent in other Western societies.
This study explores the intersection of disability and sexuality in Portugal through the experiences of a disability rights social collective. Historically, disability has been framed by models that often disregard sexuality, leading to the desexualisation and stigmatisation of disabled people. The Independent Living Movement, while addressing sexuality, reclaims self-determination and control over one's life. The research was conducted with members of a feminist anti-ableist activist collective established in Portugal in 2020, selected for its critical approach to the intersection of gender and disability. Data collection between October 2023 and July 2024 occurred across three phases - initial exploratory interviews, semi-structured interviews, and collaborative discussion of preliminary findings. The discussions focused on models of disability, terminology, sexuality, corporalities, and the theoretical and practical aspects of support for the expression of sexuality. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic nalysis. Two central themes were developed: 'multiple oppressions' and 'dissident bodies', highlighting systemic barriers and resistance strategies to achieve sexual autonomy. Findings provide insights into the importance of inclusive public policies and intersectional frameworks, offering a situated perspective on how collective agency can promote sexual rights as a matter of social justice.
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This qualitative study examines the work process of feminist activists who provide accompaniment for self-managed abortions in a major urban centre in Brazil, where abortion remains criminalised in most circumstances. Based on in-depth interviews with eight accompaniers, and drawing on Brazilian collective health and feminist ethics of care, it analyses how they integrate technique, ethics, political commitment, and social awareness, thereby transforming accompaniment into a genuine practice of care. Findings show that accompaniment recognises those cared for as subjects with knowledge, desires, and evolving needs, rather than as passive recipients. Care is organised collectively but always tailored and responsive to the needs of each person, in an interactive, critical, and reflexive manner. In doing so, accompaniers combine technical-scientific knowledge with experiential knowledge built through prior care and exchanges within trusted networks. By engaging across all stages of the process, and guided by a project whose ultimate purpose is to make abortion a good experience for those accompanied, accompaniers prevent the fragmentation and alienation of care work. Accompaniment thus emerges as a model of care grounded in radical needs: needs that arise within existing social conditions but cannot be fully satisfied within them. Once recognised and collectively articulated, these needs expose the limits of the existing order and become a source of pressure for social transformation. The high personal cost of this activism, marked by overload, insecurity, and invisibility, challenges its sustainability and expansion. By describing its constitutive elements, this study broadens understanding of abortion accompaniment and underscores the need for public policies that integrate community-based knowledge, values and practices to foster more humanised, justice-oriented models of care. In Brazil, abortion is legally restricted in most cases. Even so, many women end pregnancies on their own. Feminist activists known as accompaniers support them through this process. They share information, listen, and stay present — in person or from a distance — before, during, and after the abortion. This study looks at how these activists work. We interviewed eight accompaniers in a large city in the country. We asked about what they do, what they know, and how they feel about the work. We found that accompaniers treat each woman as a person, not as a case to be solved. They organise the work among themselves, but when they put it into practice, they listen carefully to those they accompany, adapt their plans to each situation and to each person's needs, and combine technical knowledge with what they have learned from experience. They stay involved throughout the whole process, not just during the abortion itself. Their care is free of charge and rooted in feminist values of solidarity, autonomy, and justice. This work comes at a high personal cost. Accompaniers face exhaustion, legal risks, and invisibility. These pressures threaten their ability to keep doing the work and to reach more women who need it. Health systems and public policies should learn from accompaniers. Their knowledge and practices can help build abortion care that is more humane, more equal, and more just for everyone.
Activism exposes individuals to sustained harassment, threat and psychological strain in contexts marked by discrimination and weak institutional protection. For LGBTQ communities, public engagement frequently increases vulnerability to both offline and digital harm, with cumulative consequences for mental health. Using the Balkans as a case example, this perspective sees activist mental health through a public health and health policy lens, framing distress not as an individual coping failure but as an outcome of structural barriers and minority stress processes, including inadequate legal protection, limited access to culturally competent mental health care and insufficient accountability for platform-mediated harm. This article highlights the population-level implications of unaddressed structural stressors, like burnout, disengagement and reduced sustainability of civil society participation, by situating activist mental health within broader questions of health system performance, access to care and governance. Upstream policy responses that strengthen institutional protection, ensure equitable access to mental health services and promote safer digital environments would address these challenges, positioning activist mental health as a critical public health policy issue.
In the past decade in France, several cases of mistreatment and abuse of Black women within the healthcare system have made headlines, sparking much-needed conversations among activists, and some medical personnel, on medical racism. In this article, I share insights from my work as an anthropologist, health consultant, and feminist activist in France and Mexico. I focus on one aspect of medical racism, the so-called "Mediterranean syndrome," and its impact on the reproductive care (or lack thereof) offered to Black, Arab, and other-than-White women. I also reflect on the trainings I provide to medical personnel on medical racism. These trainings reveal the complexities faced by personnel who seek change, though subject to their own bias and that of their superiors.
Identitarian progressivism has become the public face of institutional psychological science. Masking the diverse perspectives within our field, these single-minded expressions have two trust-related implications: reinforcing 'ingroup' trust among a progressive activist cohort within our science, while evoking mistrust from an 'outgroup' public that -to an overwhelming extent- does not share their views. Given the predominant role of taxpayers in funding our research, we should be concerned that the voting public may justifiably perceive our science as emphasizing activist visions of what should be over the empirical complexities of what is. Ensuring public trust will depend on re-embracing persuasive intellectual humility and eschewing the identitarian vernacular and deficit model pedagogy that currently characterizes our public-facing messaging.
The development of public policies for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS in Brazil is a history of struggle that has united public health officials, researchers and activists since the 1980s. An important part of this journey is linked to the production and distribution of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), initiatives to reduce the price of ARVs and civil society mobilizations to guarantee rights, which have contributed to creating one of the most successful programs to combat the disease in the world. Based on this history, this study aimed to analyze government spending on the acquisition of selected ARVs between 2005 and 2020, comparing prices with international prices, in the light of factors related to patent disputes, voluntary licensing, PDPs and initiatives to reduction ARV prices. Among other results, it was possible to observe that there was no immediate relationship between the end of the patent concession and price reductions. The filing of other patent applications and the absence of nationally registered competitors, even after patent expired, may be significant factors in maintaining high prices. A construção de políticas públicas para a prevenção e tratamento do HIV/Aids no Brasil é uma história de luta que une sanitaristas, pesquisadores e ativistas desde os anos 1980. Parte importante desse caminho está ligado à produção e distribuição de medicamentos antirretrovirais (ARV), iniciativas de redução do preço dos ARV e mobilizações da sociedade civil pela garantia de direitos, que contribuíram para criar um dos programas mais bem-sucedidos de combate à doença no mundo. Com base nesse histórico, este trabalho teve por objetivo analisar os gastos governamentais na aquisição de ARV selecionados no período entre 2005 e 2020, fazendo uma comparação com preços internacionais, à luz dos determinantes relacionados às disputas patentárias, ao licenciamento voluntário, às PDP e às iniciativas para redução de preços de ARV. Entre outros resultados, foi possível observar que não houve uma relação imediata entre o fim da concessão patentária e a redução de preços. Depósitos de outros pedidos de patente e a inexistência de concorrentes registrados nacionalmente, mesmo após a expiração da patente, podem ser fatores significativos para a manutenção de altos preços. El desarrollo de políticas públicas para la prevención y el tratamiento del VIH/SIDA en Brasil es una historia de lucha que ha unido a funcionarios de salud pública, investigadores y activistas desde la década de 1980. Una parte importante de esta trayectoria está vinculada a la producción y distribución de medicamentos antirretrovirales (ARV), las iniciativas para reducir su precio y las movilizaciones de la sociedad civil para garantizar los derechos, lo que contribuyó a la creación de uno de los programas más exitosos para combatir la enfermedad en el mundo. Con base en esta historia, este estudio tuvo como objetivo analizar el gasto público en la adquisición de ARV seleccionados entre 2005 y 2020, comparándolos con los precios internacionales, a la luz de los determinantes relacionados con las disputas de patentes, las licencias voluntarias, las PDP y las iniciativas para reducir los precios de los ARV. Entre otros resultados, se observó que no existía una relación inmediata entre la finalización de la concesión de la patente y la reducción de precios. La presentación de otras solicitudes de patente y la falta de competidores registrados a nivel nacional, incluso tras el vencimiento de la patente, pueden ser factores importantes que mantienen los precios altos.
The interest in psychedelics for health-related purposes has grown significantly over the past decade. However, there is an insufficient representation of stakeholders (eg, Indigenous groups, activists, policymakers) in discussions about research and regulation. Many psychedelics originate from traditional practices historically developed in low- and middle-income countries, but these regions are seldom represented in stakeholder perspectives research. The present study will examine the barriers, facilitators, and perspectives identified by a wide array of key stakeholders regarding the research and regulation of psychedelics in Brazil. Twenty-six stakeholders, including Indigenous leaders, formal industry actors, clinicians, activists, policymakers, and informal sellers, were interviewed. The data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Code-group co-occurrence indexing was used to capture the relevance of each theme across stakeholder groups. Thematic analysis revealed 4 barriers ("accessibility," "regulation," "limited knowledge," and "risks"), 3 facilitators (1need for innovation," "scientific advancements," and "legal loopholes"), and 4 perspectives ("integration of ancestral knowledge," "idealization, mysticism and scientific rigor," "user autonomy," and "tangible social benefits"). Themes were similarly present among stakeholders' discourse, though with varying frequencies and weights, allowing comparisons of the particular relevance of themes for each group. We detail cultural, political, scientific, and clinical barriers, facilitators, and perspectives for psychedelic research and regulation within a region with a rich history of traditional psychedelic use, and discuss their ethical, regulatory, and clinical implications.
This article explores the representation of sexual health in black and brown communities in London during the early COVID-19 pandemic. I examine the 'Sex & the Coronavirus' (2020) health comic series and interviews with HIV activists to demonstrate how they shifted the focus of COVID-19 health promotion away from the hegemonic white middle class and towards black and brown experiences. I use textual and visual analysis to trace the construction of practical information about COVID-19 and STI prevention-including biomedical, public health and relationship advice-and demonstrate how the imagery and language of mutual aid and interdependence enact counterhegemonic strategies. I argue that these materials and activist experiences set out key principles for counterhegemonic health promotion practice at the intersection of sexual health and COVID-19 prevention. I suggest that these principles should be further trialled for inclusive health promotion theory and practice.
The manosphere, a decentralized network of online communities united by anti-feminist and male supremacist ideologies, has increasingly been recognized as a site of radicalization, violence, and cultural influence. This mixed methods systematic review synthesizes 105 empirical studies on the manosphere (e.g., The Red Pill, incels, Men's Rights Activists, Men Going Their Own Way, Pickup Artists) to examine how sexual violence is mobilized in these communities. Sexual violence mobilization refers not only to abusive incidents, but also broader discourses, attitudes, and practices that work to reproduce gendered power. Using a convergent integrated approach to synthesis and reflexive thematic analysis, we identified that manosphere actors leverage sexually violent acts and rhetoric to consolidate group identity and further their ideological goal of male supremacy, though, paradoxically, they do so under the guise of personal victimhood. Drawing on these findings, we propose a framework for conceptualizing sexual violence mobilization within the manosphere, highlighting how this mobilization is being used as a tool for recruitment, indoctrination, application of core ideologies, and the maintenance of these communities. The scope of this issue requires multi-level interventions, centering liberatory, gender-transformative programming for men.
Bariatric surgery (or weight loss surgery, WLS), an increasingly common intervention into "obesity," remains a contentious topic amongst obesity experts, critics, and fat activists. As part of a larger study employing a neomaterialist framework, we worked with four women who resided in Canada and had WLS a minimum of one year prior to create life-size body-maps representing their pre- and post-surgical experiences. As a method, body-mapping can bring attention to somatic, embodied, and affective elements, uncovering structures of feeling informing/shaping WLS experiences. We used an affective analytic approach to make sense of the body-maps, which we present according to three affective strands: shades of gray, sensorial-cognitive relationalities with food and body, and entanglements of anticipated and unruly sensations and affects. Body-maps highlight the affective politics that are set into motion by, and set into motion, WLS and the hegemonic discourses and unruly affects that emerged.