Motherhood as Immortality (Video)
- [Music]
- Greetings and good day to you. My name is Dr. Nubian Sun and I'm a Clinical Assistant Professor
- at the Tulane School of Social Work. I am excited to speak with you
- about my areas of passion as well as a recent publication. My areas of passion are:
- incarceration re-entry (especially with women and girls), the afrocentric perspective and social work,
- healing and creative arts in social work, and black women and healing-informed leadership.
- I adore these four areas as they sum up not only my research interests but also my practice
- interests that have been so abundant in the past 20 years. The Afrocentric perspective and social
- work is a theoretical basis that grounds all of my work. And incarceration reentry is where I focus
- many of my practice experiences along with research. Healing and creative arts and social work
- is a joy of mine especially. And I feel it's important as a practitioner, as an educator,
- as a community steward that you make room for the creative. And I'll speak a little about that
- with the publication I want to discuss. And my fourth area, black women and healing-informed
- leadership, that area is very important because there are many black women especially in the south
- (and that's my focus) who harness a great deal of power of not only power presently, but
- also ancestral power and knowledge. Power and knowledge through their personal experiences.
- Power and knowledge through engaging in certain works across the intersections of social movements
- and so on. So I honor the expertise and the life and the sacrifices that black women
- continue to make especially in leadership throughout the south in certain community settings.
- These topics are very impactful in various ways. The Afrocentric perspective
- allows us to be grounded in the humanistic values of folks.
- To honor a person's culture. To honor a person's history. To honor a whole person's essence.
- When you begin to look at not only research and drawing those conclusions from research,
- but also drawing those conclusions in the name of practice and intervention.
- Incarceration and reentry, especially with women and girls, is very important
- because that work and that and research has opened up doors to
- allow more conversation, more awareness. Also funding for individuals and entities across
- the south, especially. The healing and the creating arts in social work is very important as a scholar,
- as a practitioner, as an educator. I find it very important to always be grounded in the creative.
- And then the spiritual work that social work can beautifully make room for. So the healing
- and the creative arts is very pivotal, especially in this time of covid, when we're thinking about
- the need for more social workers. Also there's a need for more creativity
- and artistic intervention. As those pieces of art and pieces of spirituality are very important
- when forming interventions and making clear decisions when it comes to the essence of people.
- Also, a lot of my research has overlapped many of my four areas. And my last book chapter was a
- chapter in an anthology by Complex Club Publishing called Our Voices Our Stories: Advancing,
- Celebrating, and Empowering Girls and Women of Color. So this anthology was released in 2019 by
- Complex Publishing out of Jersey City, New Jersey. And the title of my piece was called Motherhood as
- Immortality. And again, reiterating on the power of healing and the creative, this was a poem.
- The poem was in genuflection of my mother and mothering period. And how the act of motherhood,
- even along the spectrum of mothering, is a form of immortality. Being a mother allows folks to,
- you know, claim stake as being immortal because of the power of mothering that furthers generations,
- furthers generations further forward and can often help heal generations in the past. So this poem,
- you know, was written in honor of my mother. And talking about the things that
- she sacrificed, and the things that she endured, and the things she continues
- to endure in her lifetime as a mother, not only to me but other people and to communities. And so
- that piece- and in my work I balance the heavy empirical with more narrative, with artistic means,
- with multimedia means, and different types of ethnographic methodology. I combine
- them and I balance all of it, because all of it is important. And I always practice having
- my research, and my ideals, and social work values and principles, and my teaching, and my
- work as a practitioner all be in alignment. And I'm able to do this in these four areas
- and come out with a balanced and a well-rounded way in which I teach, in which I practice, in which
- research is published and shared. Thank you for listening. This is Dr. Nubian Sun, Clinical
- Assistant Professor with the Tulane School of Social Work. Have a wonderful day and be well.
- [Music]