How did the Feminist Health Justice Collective (FHJC) come about?

In 2020, a group of faculty members and students came together, inspired by the public or hashtag syllabus projects that emerged in the wake of uprisings against racialized violence. We were interested in taking a more expansive approach than a single specific topic would enable. As a result, we decided to make a meta-syllabus of sorts: a database within which community members, academics, students, and others could search by topic and generate their own syllabi or reading lists. In addition, we wanted to make sure it would work well for those within and outside of academic settings. As a result, it catalogs videos, websites, and community-based publications alongside scholarly articles and books.

What does the FHJC do?

The FHJC seeks to provide a synthetic, expansive, and "upstream" framing of issues related to health and justice. It enables users to generate focused reading lists, syllabi, or resource collections related to health justice using the FHJC Database. The flexibility of this Database is designed to work in a variety of settings by indexing a wide range of publications and products. Most importantly, it focuses primarily on structural frameworks to emphasize the broader systems of power and resistance at play in health inequity and health justice.

How does the FHJC Database work?

The FHJC Database uses a combination of topic-based tags (e.g., "COVID-19"), structural frameworks (e.g., "The Carceral System and Abolition"), and resource types (e.g., "article" or "video") that can be accessed with targeted searches. As a "meta-syllabus," it is in essence a curated database that enables activists, instructors, community members, and others to develop tailored syllabi, resource lists, or community courses focused on topics related to health justice. Its intersectional feminist framing assumes the interconnectedness of multiple systems of domination and liberation—hence the primary organization focus on systems.

What can I use the FHJC Database for?

The flexibility of the FHJC Database means you can use it in many ways! Instructors or community organizations might plan a course or a political education session by searching on specific topics and systems. For example, you could select a specific system (such as "Disability Justice") and include or exclude specific topics within this (e.g., housing, health disparity, chronic illness, youth, community-led, etc.). The Database will then generate a list of articles, websites, videos, and books related to Disability Justice for use in a course, community seminar, or reading group!

How can I help or take part?

We would love for you to share this resource with your constituents, partners, colleagues, co-workers, and collaborators. We also hope that you make use of the resource in the ways that make sense to you. If you would like to contribute to some of our current projects, you can visit our Get Involved page to learn more.