(Click on the project for more information)
African American Sexual and Reproductive Health Project
Latino Sexual and Reproductive Health Project
Bangladesh Sexual and Reproductive Health Project
Haitian Children and Youth Rights Project
Haitian Environment-Agricultural Education Project
Ugandan Sexual and Reproductive Health and Gender-based Violence Project
Sex, Shame, and Violence: A Revolutionary Practice of Public Storytelling in Poor Communities
"I listened to people talk about their feelings of shame and I heard how people suffered, because they were unable to change what was happening to them—HIV infection, sexual and domestic violence, and violence toward children," says Kathleen Cash, author of the new book, Sex, Shame, and Violence: A Revolutionary Practice of Public Storytelling in Poor Communities (Vanderbilt University Press, July 19, 2016). Cash saw that many outside interventions lacked emotional and cultural integrity and thus did little to alleviate these hardships.
"So I designed a strategy for changing the nature of power and powerlessness through storytelling," Cash says. In her new book, she gives the reader a detailed explanation of her pioneering methods and the reasoning behind them. She chronicles how she pieces numerous interviews into cultural stories that reveal paradoxes in people's suffering. She describes how, in Thailand, Bangladesh, Haiti, Uganda, and the United States, people learned to talk about forbidden subjects and say what they could never say before. They reconciled, stood up to each other, and made health-seeking decisions. By helping others, they repaired themselves. Through this practice, people overcame silence. In cathartic conversations they acknowledged shame, which led to acts of courage and generosity.
"In close-knit, impoverished communities, avoiding social stigma may mean the difference between life and death. Drawing pragmatic insights from the lived experience of the poor in Haiti, Thailand, Bangladesh, Uganda, and the United States, Kathleen Cash developed the narrative practice—strategies for engaging people and for stirring up empathy, through storytelling—described in Sex, Shame, and Violence. Cash offers a powerful means of transforming shame into solidarity, and addressing a key barrier to accessing care."
—Dr. Paul Farmer
Book Information
Publication date: July 19, 2016
232 pages, 7 x 10 inches
130 b&w illustrations • references, index
hardcover $69.95 ISBN 978-0-8265-2050-0
paperback $29.95 ISBN 978-0-8265-2051-7
ebook $9.99 ISBN 978-0-8265-2052-4