My name is Alexus Davis, and I am a PhD student and research assistant at University of
Manchester; I study the birth narratives of First Nations Australian women in the Department
of Sociology. I received my Master of Science in Global Health Ethics and Law at St.
Georges Medical University of London, where I researched the implications of World Health
Organizational midwifery guidelines for maternal care in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I previously studied comparative literary and cultural studies, as well as environmental
sciences (Franklin University Switzerland), health sciences (Dublin City University) and
biomedical sciences (University of Dundee).
I am a certified, full-spectrum doula (a trained companion who supports another person through a significant health-related experience, such as childbirth), and I am currently working with Uptown Village Cooperative, New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia Medical Centre on a postpartum care pilot program, striving to provide doula care for women in New York, NY. I was also previously an intern at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin in Dublin, Ireland.
My work, more widely, considers the theory of knowledge hierarchy in maternal care, maternal phenomena, politics of care, embodiment, and memory of postcolonial violence in care practice. Much of my current research considers disparity in maternal health outcomes for First Nations women in Australia and focuses on the importance of Indigenized Knowledges, as well as decolonial methodologies in perinatal care and research; I utilize Poetic Inquiry (I am a poet) and Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. My work as a doula, researcher, hospital intern, as well as my positionality as a Foundational Black American woman (unfortunately there are significant disparities in maternal care outcomes for Black American women in the US, as well) informs my work.
Watch the talk LIVE on Friday 18th November at 7pm.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNLjdnS8qSZfJ2nBFBfdP4g