Global Health Speaker Series 2023-2024
Wednesday, January 17, 2024, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
This presentation delves into the emergence of African-centered mental health approaches as counters to mainstream clinical methods. African-centered healing circles, described as sacred lifelines by Williams (2009), address historical and modern racial stress for Black people, preserve culture, and foster collective healing. They circles offer protection against the toll of ongoing racism, serving as community-driven medicine. As attacks on Black people gain visibility, the need for healing circles has grown triggering local and virtual responses. Amid disenchanted views of Western methods, healing circles signify a shift towards indigenous practices. This presentation chronicles their growth, theories, and impacts, outlining a roadmap for national and international expansion with a focus on the Association of Black Psychologists’ Sawubona Healing Circle national program.
Evan Auguste, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His identities as a Haitian-African American man have informed his work on examining how the U.S.’s history of anti-Blackness has shaped psychological realities in and outside of the country’s borders. He is the director of the A.S.I.L.I. Collective, a research group whose work focuses broadly on addressing the mental health consequences of structural anti-Blackness through the lens of Black liberation psychology. Their research examines the effects of disparate exposure to justice-contact for Black adolescents and intergenerational traumas for Haitian people. They also focus on developing and piloting anti-carceral and community-based health interventions.
