Past event

BFRB U & I: Collaboration, Charity and the Struggle for Care Social Anthropology Departmental Seminar with Dr Bridget Bradley (University of St Andrews)

In this paper I describe ongoing collaborations with my research community and our recent work developing a charitable organisation. These efforts emerge from several years of ethnographic research among those living with compulsive hair pulling (trichotillomania), skin picking (dermatillomania) and other body-focused repetitive behaviours (BFRBs) in Britain and the United States. Embracing a vulnerable autoethnographic approach, I map my personal journey of navigating compulsive hair pulling since childhood; to forming bonds of relatedness with my interlocuters; and my subsequent commitment to advocacy through leading the charity. I briefly chronicle these experiences alongside the voices of my interlocutors and collaborators, situating our examples within discourse on the politics of recognition and care. I consider our charity efforts to be a kind of ‘biosolidarity economy paradox', suggesting this as a useful way to conceptualise the way disabled and neurodivergent activists often find themselves caught in a struggle for care due to the inherent ableism of biomedicine and neoliberalism. This discussion speaks to influential scholarship in anthropology and disability studies, drawing attention to the strengths and challenges of embodied activist approaches to theory, methods and impact beyond the academy.

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