“There are many, many people working on different aspects of reproductive justice (as defined by Sister Song) on this campus, but we are not necessarily talking to each other in a coordinated way,” notes Dr. Sarah Gamble, Communications Manager at the Pembroke Center and Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies. That has begun to change. In 2022, Gamble and Dr. Madina Agénor, Associate Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Epidemiology, met to explore potential interdisciplinary projects and then, with the support of the School of Public Health and the Population Studies and Training Center, in 2023-24, began organizing monthly lunches with interested faculty and graduate students. The Reproductive Justice Collaborative – which welcomes additional participants – aims to “to foster and support collaborations in reproductive justice research, advocacy, and community engagement, and to host meetings and events that help advance reproductive justice locally, nationally, and/or globally.”
An important step toward more coordination and collaboration was more information about reproductive justice efforts on campus and in community organizations, existing partnerships, volunteer opportunities and community priorities for further research and engagement. Not only faculty participants in the early lunches identified this need; Gamble recalls community partners also calling for “more collaborative, less extractive relationships with the Brown community.” In response, this summer, Gamble collaborated with Laidlaw Scholars Lily Randell '25, Cyntia Roig '27, and Jacqueline Zhang '27 to identify and map reproductive justice-related organizations and advocacy efforts at Brown University, in Providence, and throughout Rhode Island.
The Laidlaw Scholars conducted qualitative interviews with key informants, including representatives of community organizations and student groups, as well as alumni, faculty and physicians, in order to develop a comprehensive database of regional reproductive justice resources. Findings from the interviews underscored the importance of connecting resources to one another, advocacy both at a grassroots and legislative level, and the role and responsibility Brown could play. There was also a focus on homeless youth, who represent a particularly vulnerable population in the reproductive justice landscape, with one-third of all homeless youth in Rhode Island pregnant or parenting. In collaboration with the Strategizing Solutions to End Youth Homelessness group and the RI Youth Action Board, the project team cataloged available resources in the database recommended as resources for homeless youth specifically. Zhang's training in computer science and art and design proved valuable to developing a database (using Google Sheet App Script in JavaScript) that would be accessible and minimally intimidating to utilize.
Though the database has yet to be fully released to the public for use, Dr. Gamble says the process of creating the database “has been enormously generative in terms of building relationships and connecting researchers, student groups, and community organizations” and “reducing silos between these groups.” She is hiring a student to continue to build and maintain the database while also exploring the possibility of integrating the database with more established or broader platforms. Ultimately, the goal of this shared information is sustained engagement. As the Laidlaw Scholars concluded in their research poster, “it is crucial to emphasize and expand Brown’s involvement with the community in an ethical and non-extractive manner, fostering greater collaboration and inclusivity.”
The Laidlaw Scholars Leadership & Research Program collaborates with UTRA to support students undertaking community-engaged research projects with faculty collaborators at Brown. It fosters students' continued growth as community-engaged learners through training in community-engaged research methods, workshops with community partners and professional development opportunities, and it also funds a second summer for students to undertake a community-engaged project of their choice. Students in their first and second years at Brown, from all disciplines and backgrounds, are eligible to participate. In Summer 2024, twenty-three undergraduate Laidlaw Scholars worked with the following faculty and staff members on engaged research projects:
- Grace Argo (Swearer Center), Strategizing Solutions to End Youth Homelessness in Rhode Island
- Tosca Braun (Religious Studies and Psychiatry and Human Behavior), Mindful Yoga and Stigma Resistance in the Context of Incarceration – A Community-Engaged Qualitative Inquiry; and Yoga and Self-Compassion for Survivors of Violence: A Community-Engaged Study
- Becci Davis (Visual Arts), Unpolished Legacies Online
- Bathsheba Demuth (History and Environment and Society), Sovereignty and the Yukon River
- Sarah Gamble (Gender and Sexuality Studies), Reproductive Justice Collaborative
- Avery Willis Hoffman (Theatre Arts and Performance Studies and Classics), BAI: IGNITE Open Call Resource Guide; Chachi Carvalho: "Local Traffic" Project; and, with Jamil Jorge and Lawren Epstein, ArtsCorps Mobile App Development
- Ramu Kharel (Emergency Medicine), Nepal Rural Trauma
- Patsy Lewis (Africana Studies) and Tarika Sankar (Digital Humanities Librarian), In the Wake of George Floyd
- Melissa Palma (Family Medicine), TayoHelp.com Culturally Tailored Health Education for Filipinx/a/o Americans