Abstract
Racism in Britain is a public health issue. The health of Black
and minority ethnic Britons is shaped by structural discrimination and
inequality, leading to illness and, in many cases, death. The Windrush
scandal saw the withdrawal of NHS services from those wrongly labelled
as non-citizens as well as high levels of stress and anxiety caused by the
loss of jobs, homes, benefits, and wrongful deportation. The COVID-19
pandemic has also had a disproportionate impact on Black Britons, who
have been found to be four times more likely to die of COVID-19 than white
people. How do we do literature and science studies, or medical humanities
scholarship, in this context? How do we read, imagine, intervene in, and
understand the way that hostile environments and spaces—the street, the
hospital, the university—shape the experience of Black Britons in ways
which science and medicine are unable or unwilling to capture? Who is the
‘we’ I am referring to here, and who is ‘our’ audience for this work? In this
essay, I explore some possible responses to these questions, in dialogue
with Katherine McKittrick’s Dear Science and Other Stories (2021) and with the
work of other Black thinkers and writers which asks us to carefully attend
to our methodological responses to racism across disciplines.
and minority ethnic Britons is shaped by structural discrimination and
inequality, leading to illness and, in many cases, death. The Windrush
scandal saw the withdrawal of NHS services from those wrongly labelled
as non-citizens as well as high levels of stress and anxiety caused by the
loss of jobs, homes, benefits, and wrongful deportation. The COVID-19
pandemic has also had a disproportionate impact on Black Britons, who
have been found to be four times more likely to die of COVID-19 than white
people. How do we do literature and science studies, or medical humanities
scholarship, in this context? How do we read, imagine, intervene in, and
understand the way that hostile environments and spaces—the street, the
hospital, the university—shape the experience of Black Britons in ways
which science and medicine are unable or unwilling to capture? Who is the
‘we’ I am referring to here, and who is ‘our’ audience for this work? In this
essay, I explore some possible responses to these questions, in dialogue
with Katherine McKittrick’s Dear Science and Other Stories (2021) and with the
work of other Black thinkers and writers which asks us to carefully attend
to our methodological responses to racism across disciplines.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Science, Culture, and Postcolonial Narratives |
| Publisher | Heidelberg University Publishing |
| Publication status | Published - 13 Nov 2025 |
