Oppression and the Body: Roots, Resistance, and Resolutions by Christine Caldwell

Oppression and the Body: Roots, Resistance, and Resolutions Reviews

• 
  Jennie Chantal

  I was SO excited for this book when it came out. Unfortunately, overall, it did not meet my expectations. But, I would still recommend it. There are just various issues that need to be highlighted.
  
  This is a book about "the way oppression operates in the lived experience of the body" and some somatic based therapies and interventions that can be used to address it so that individuals can live more fully and freely in their bodies. It presents essays by a relatively diverse group of authors who offer their individual stories of oppression or those of their clients or community. I liked that the book had both more academic essays and more personal ones although the quality of the writing varied dramatically. While some essays felt finished and well edited, others clearly needed more work and felt rambling and repetitive. Essays by Eli Clare (relevant despite being 17 years old), Lalo Piangco Rivera, and Carla Sherrell really stood out.
  
  While there is discussion (particularly in Part 1) of the whole reason why oppression of the body exists--namely white supremacy, capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy--it's applied in a pretty hit and miss way throughout the essays. Caldwell actually uses the term "differently-abled" to refer to disabled people/people with disabilities (a group of which I belong)! And Jeanine M. Canty actually uses the word "civilized" in reference to colonizing cultures and as dichotomous to "earth-based lifestyle[s]" by which we are meant to understand an entire continent of diverse indigenous cultures! She does not, in any way, do justice to the impact of colonization on oppression of indigenous peoples bodies and the land as a body in her essay. Beit Gorski references Caldwell, saying that in her Moving Cycle model "tension, chronic pain, fatigue, and depression [are an] individual's "unfinished experience"..." which brings up so much medical trauma for me, where professionals use ideas like this, that pain etc are actually psychosomatic, to deny treatment, stigmatize etc.
  
  I think the self-identified white, cisgender, able-bodied editors did their best to recognize their position of power as editors of this anthology and were thoughtful about including authors from diverse backgrounds and identities. And yet, that a book on oppression and the body has NO essay written by a Native American women, nor a black trans woman, the two groups of people in America that experience the highest levels of oppression of any other groups, is a very disappointing exclusion. What also stood out was in the introduction,when they use a quote from Ta-Nehisi Coates in which he is talking about oppression of the BLACK body, except they do what so many white folks do, they stripped it of its context to apply it to any and every body. Not ok!
  
  Logistically, I loathe when authors names are not included in the table of contents! Also, the poets Rae Johnson and Victoria Henry were not even included in the table of contents which is literally unacceptable. (Don't get me started on the layout of the poems).
  
  Ok so this all isn't to say one shouldn't bother reading this book. You should read it! But with a critical lens that considers who is being left out or misrepresented. These criticisms are offered with great respect to the editors and authors. There is always risk in putting work like this out in the world, as the editors recognize in their introduction and I hope learning comes from this and other critiques.
  
  What I think they have succeeded at is bringing this book into being. It's an incredibly important book because the field of somatic psychology is super white and oriented around the experience of cisgender, currently able-bodied, straight, class privileged people. In this way, this anthology is quite groundbreaking and I hope it makes its way into the hands and minds of many practitioners.
  
  
  
• 
  C.E. G

  I got some really interesting ideas out of this anthology, despite having a few qualms with it. Qualms: It's VERY white - like I think maybe at least 2/3rds the essays were by white queer cisgender women and white queer nonbinary/trans people. The editors acknowledged this in the beginning, but it started to feel a little redundant even though the essays had different focuses (e.g. fatness, disability, queerness, intersex) because of the whiteness of each of those contributors. Also very Naropa University heavy, which makes me think the editors mostly reached out to those they knew well (though I don't know maybe this is common for anthologies). I also thought it was a little odd to assemble a book called "Oppression and the Body" without much addressing how oppression impacts bodies that have privilege and tendencies to harm.
  
  And as with any anthology, the essays were hit or miss.
  
  But despite these complaints, I am glad I read it, I would recommend it, and there are some ideas I want to hold onto and follow up on. The essays most worth reading for me were the one from the first section on "Body Identity Development," as well as all four of the essays in the final section called "Embodied Action."
  
  I feel like this would pair well with My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakam (which I also have some qualms with, but still got a lot out of what I read).
  
• 
  Mercer Smith

  This was extremely good in that it explored oppression and “othering” through a number of lenses. However, perhaps because of the large number of lenses, the exploration often felt surface level. Like the 101 version of a course in college. I found myself wishing that the chapters were longer or dove a bit deeper into their topics, outside of a few.
  
  I recognize that there are plenty of citations that I could use for further reading, but I wish there had been just a bit more unpacking/deep diving within the context/content of the book itself.
• 
  Corvus

  "
  Oppression and the Body," begins from a place of introspection and intentionality. Both editors took the time to explain where they are positioned in society via privilege or lack of it, how this may affect what they produce, and steps they took to even things out. Both editors come from a background of somatics and did make attempts to have representation across authors chosen for the book. There were some times where their language fell short, such as using "transgendered" instead of "transgender" on the back cover and elsewhere as well as taking Ta-Nehisi Coates quotes about Black peoples experiences out of context and generalizing them to everyone. I thought the former was because an Eli Clare essay from 2001 was included in the book using that term, but they also have another trans person in the book using updated terms. I found it a little strange that such an old (while excellent) entry from Eli Clare was chosen because he expands upon it and addresses some things he has changed his thinking about in his recent book, "Brilliant Imperfection." But, that could simply be a publishing/copyright issue. That said, it served an important function in discussing disabled, Queer, and trans bodies in Clare's consistently elegant ways.
  
  The entries in the book are grouped into three main sections: Oppression of bodies in societies, marginalized bodies in society, and embodied action. The authors come at the topics using multiple mediums including descriptive analyses, therapeutic interventions, and poetry and other types of art. I really appreciated that some authors were inclusive of nonhuman animals in their discussions of somatic oppression and healing. Most of the essays are academic in style and nature. I am not a poetry person normally, so I am not sure if my distaste for it was because of preference or quality of the poetry. I really enjoyed and got a lot out of most of the other entries though. I also enjoyed that each essay contained both citations and bibliography offering the reader a lot of other sources that expand upon these topics.
  
  The entries I enjoyed the most were the two at the beginning by each editor and those by Carla Sherrell, Beit Gorski, and Jen Labarbara. The first two gave me a better idea of studies in somatics and did well setting the stage for the rest of the book. Sherrell brought needed attention to the white centrism of many somatics practitioners and practices, leading many people to see the term "somatics" as meaning white. She explained how Black people suffer in unique and transgenerational ways, requiring tailored interventions such as those inclusive of their ancestors. Gorski shared xyr experience and knowledge as an intersex, nonbinary, trans person by explaining ways in which the medicalized binarism of sex and gender are problematic and harmful. Xie showed that it is not only gender that is socially constructed, but also sex. In xyr other essay, xie offered models for defining and coping with body and social dysphoria via "transforming distress" group intervention. Labarbara utilized her knowledge and experience as a Queer, Femme, woman to destigmatize Queerness as a response to trauma. She describes Queerness as a sublimation and "welcome effect" of sexual violence and other trauma, smashing ableist, rape culture ideas that stigmatize survivors and/or LGBT people or attempt to separate us from the whole of our lives. I chose to focus my review only on these entries because I enjoyed them the most, but do not take the intentional brevity as indication that the other entries did not have immense value as well.
  
  While this book didn't hit on every demographic out there, there comes a point where attempting to do so can amount to destructive tokenism. Given that reality, I thought the authors did well finding voices across a pretty specific field of study. I also really enjoyed the graphic design of the cover and book, as a side note. You can judge this book by its cover.
  
  This was also posted to my
  blog.
• 
  Rae Slezak

  As one would expect, it's a heavy read, it took me a while to get through it but the content was great. It is really geared toward therapists/counsellors which is great for me since I'm completing my masters in counselling psychology, but perhaps a little less helpful for those looking for something more self-help-y.
  
  As others have pointed out, this book discusses the oppression of marginalized bodies, and the authors discuss a lot on identities with which they have no lived experience. So some chapters need to be read with a grain of salt; however, the authors do acknowledge this shortcoming in the beginning of the book and rationalize why they chose to write it anyway, which I appreciated.
  
  This book is filled with a lot of practical techniques/interventions that can be used for helping clients feel comfortable with inhabiting their bodies after lifetimes/generations of oppression. Worth the read for sure but definitely take your time with it, it's heavy!
• 
  Hannah Greenwood

  From the preface of this book, I knew instantly that it was going to be a healing, emotional, and enlightening read. As a queer woman with a seemingly ever-evolving body after having three babies & surviving SA, this book was one that I truly needed to read — for both myself, and the clients that I support as a doula.
  
  Oppression and the Body was a suggested book for my full spectrum doula training, and I’m so grateful that it was. I think this anthology was incredible and that everyone could learn from it, or find some healing within it.
• 
  Bea

  This was probably one of the most important non-fiction books I've read in my life. It is timeless, and I wish there were more discussions like this. Trauma and the human condition should not be politicized topics—we should be able to have more open-minded conversations on what it means to be humans with all of our intersectionalities and differences without turning it into an attack. Everything about this I loved. The different perspectives, the range of topics, the voice—so much to discuss.
• 
  R.J. Gilmour

  I was hoping that this edited collection was an academic study of the relationship between oppression and the body, instead it is a collection of subjective stories of individual oppression.
• 
  Carly

  Issues very clearly explained and stated. Our class found the book to be VERY helpful and relatable. Still, many heavy and triggering topics. Yet, I would consider to be a very worth while read
• 
  Kayla Cafero

  Some points and concepts were revolutionary to me while a heavy portion felt a bit shallow. Would recommend, especially for an entry into the subject(s) matter
• 
  Briann

  I was really excited to read this book. A lot of the ideas and concepts were interesting and thought-provoking. However, the book ultimately fell short of my expectations. The chapters were very short and not as developed as I expected. I did enjoy “Chapter 7: The Transcarceral Body” and” Chapter 11: Moving Between Identities: Embodied Codeswitching."
• 
  abbyobsessesoverbooks

  I read this for a doula training and I very much enjoyed this essay collection. It is somewhat geared towards therapeutic professionals (at least with the practical info at the end). Quite a few essays resonated with me and I will definitely flip through to read a couple of them again.