Volume I, Issue I

COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE COLLECTIVE Sociolog y Research Journal VOLUM E I | I S SU E I

WILLIAM & MARY

The Collective Sociology Research Journal

VOLUME I, ISSUE I FALL 2019 1

Executive Board Editor-in-Chief Robert Metaxatos

Layout Editor Dalton Lackey

Public Relations Director Jasmine Geonzon

Finance Director Sam Huffman

Copy Editor Nico Bronson

Review Board Gus Espinoza Chris Hettwer Julia Laber Celia Lu Kibiriti Majuto Gavin Meister Laura Tutko

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Contents

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Editor’s Note

A Legacy of Inequality: Liberalization and the Rural-Urban Divide of Ghana Maya FarrHenderson

The “Veil” Against Black Men on the Run Katie Wenger

Legislation, Culture, and Stigma Surrounding Women’s Rights to Publicly Breastfeed Eveie Godino

Foucault on (Bio)Power Robert Metaxatos

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Editor’s Note Dear Reader, Thank you for picking up a copy of The Collective: Sociology Journal. It was no light task to stitch together the first-ever issue, but foundational support from past members, careful effort from current members, and earnest encouragement from the campus community resulted in a ‘collective’ victory. (You can rest assured this pun saw heavy use along the way.)

Our journal was slated to begin last school year under the direction of another team, many of whom graduated and could not see the project to fruition; their groundwork gave me confidence to restart The Collective once and for all. We would like to sincerely thank those members: Cait Macias Hentze, Stephen Hsu, Melissa Hudson, Renee Liden, Nadia Ma, and Leah Roemer. Without your help, William & Mary would be sullenly bereft of a sociology club/journal.

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The goal of The Collective is to disseminate undergraduate sociological scholarship in furtherance of new opportunities for learning and growth among individuals as they traverse an unbalanced social landscape. Its name derives from Émile Durkheim’s theory of “collective consciousness,” though we appropriate its use to emphasize the relational aspect of diverse knowledges and empowered communities. The four essays contained here engage with the discipline of sociology in a ‘productive’ way. What do I mean by this? Two things: that this journal, at once a textual object and soon an archival source, constitutes a skein, a fluid mosaic; and that each essay broaches the topic of production—of individual and political bodies. FarrHenderson’s essay on modernization in Ghana exposes gaps in neoliberalism, calling for a Black Radical Tradition that re-situates marginal voices; Wenger’s re-reading of Alice Goffman’s controversial ethnography conceptualizes the veil in relation to the oppression of black bodies; Godino’s analysis of public breastfeeding raises questions of stigma and where the law falls short; and Metaxatos’s summary of biopolitics warrants readers’ further consideration of the relevance of Foucauldian methodology.

Onward, then! I sincerely thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy this short tour through leading undergraduate sociology scholarship at the university. Best wishes as you continue on your own path.

A Legacy of Inequality: Liberalization and the Rural-Urban Divide of Ghana Maya FarrHenderson On March 6, 1957, Ghana ended almost a century of British colonial rule and became the first West African country to declare independence under the leadership of its first President and Prime Minister, Kwame Nkrumah. The independence of Ghana was part of a larger movement of “decolonialization” following the end of World War II, but even after independence, Ghana’s history and culture have been extensively impacted and shaped

by Western colonialism and imperialism. Neo-liberal policies have helped Ghana become one of the most “stable” countries in West Africa. It is considered to be one of the most successful examples of structural adjustment (Toye 1991: 155). Structural adjustment programs (SAPs) are clauses included as a condition for loans provided by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to countries experiencing economic crisis. To receive the loan, countries must agree to make a variety of structural changes to their economic policies which often focus on liberalizing the economy.

Of the 54 countries which make up the region of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Ghana touts one of the top GDPs both nominal and per capita (World Bank). But neo-liberalism and the implementation of SAPs have only aided Ghana’s economy and “development” in strictly defined arenas, many of which benefit western countries and corporations more than the citizens of Ghana itself. This essay seeks to explore the socio-historical context in which Ghana accepted SAPs and the reasons for the difference in the stated intentions of the World Bank and IMF and the outcomes experienced by Ghana and its citizens.

President Nkrumah planned to demonstrate to the world the power of Africans to “conduct their own affairs with efficiency and tolerance and through the exercise of democracy” (Bourret, 1949: 202). He intentionally discussed the accomplishment of independence in terms of Africa, rather than just Ghana or West Africa because of his dream of Pan-Africanism. Nkrumah was the first African head of state to call for unity across the African diaspora including the Caribbean, North and Latin America. His support of solidarity among marginalized peoples is exemplified with his founding membership in the Non-Aligned Movement. The NonAligned Movement is an organization of countries in the Global South standing against Western cultural, political, and economic hegemony. Nkrumah was also a founding architect of “African socialism,” or a rejection of capitalism in favor of afro-centric communalism. Nkrumah’s policies and plans for the future of Ghana, and Africa as a whole, were

aligned with post-development theory which advocated divesting from global capitalism in favor of a diverse economy which conforms to and best accommodates the country of origin rather than Western capitalists. Nkrumah was perhaps too forward thinking. His ideas and plans for an anti-capitalist, united Africa in the heat of the Cold War were considered radical and dangerous to the west.

In a plot aided and possibly instigated by the United States’ C.I.A, Nkrumah was overthrown in 1966 while on a visit to North Vietnam (Hersh, 1978).

Still in exile from the country, Nkrumah died only six years later. Following his ousting and eventual death, Ghana went through a period of unrest with a series of military and civilian governments and multiple coups, until the eventual ascension of the Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings who seceded Dr. Hilla Limann through a coup in 1981.

When Rawlings’s party, the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), first came into power it espoused the implementation of socialist policies to help Ghana. The PNDC had confidence in the Soviet Union’s ability to provide economic aid to Ghana, but as the Soviet Union waned in power, it was unable to provide assistance (Boafo-Arthur, 1999: 48). In 1983, the PNDC abandoned socialism in favor of neo-liberal structural adjustment programs (SAPs) (Boafo-Arthur, 1999: 46). SAPs are conditional loans provided by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). These institutions were ushered in by the Bretton Woods system which was created to establish the rules and standards of free trade among high-income countries. The World Bank and IMF offer loans to the governments of low- and middle-income countries that are struggling economically under the condition that they institute “liberalizing” policies in the form of SAPs. Prior to the 1970s the dominant paradigm for low-and-middle countries was that, in order to develop, they needed to industrialize on their own with internal policies and without international intervention. But in the 1970s, the United States was experiencing a period of stagflation and a rise in a grassroots labor movement. Corporations needed to look beyond the country’s borders to increase profits and the Global South, with its historical context of western imperialism, was ripe for the taking. Between 1983 and 1992, Ghana implemented six IMF reform packages with the main features of, pursuing “labor retrenchment, trade liberalization and devaluation, subsidy withdrawal, and an increase in user fees” (Boafo-Arthur, 1999: 49). These policies are consistent with the Washington Consensus school of thought that low-and-middle income

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countries should move the role of the state away 1994: 455). Those in rural areas also experienced an from being the sole provider of welfare to that of increase in joblessness following SAP implementaquality assurer and focus on strengthening the martion as a result of the retrenchment of labor poliket and exchange (Konadu-Agyemang, 2000: 479). cies. At the beginning of 1990, between 140,000 After declaring independence, Nkrumah announced and 150,000 workers had lost their jobs and the the objective of the democratic government of GhaGhanaian Trade Union Congress (TUC) estimatna to abolish “poverty, ignorance, and disease.” He ed that they had lost close to 200,000 members planned to measure this progress by improvement through retrenchment (Boafo-Arthur, 1999: 51). in health, education, and the availability of water Although Ghana experienced an increase in GNI and electricity in the “towns and villages” and by and GDP per capita with the implementation of the ability of the citizens SAPs and neo-liberal polto manage their own affairs icies it was at the expense After declaring independence, (Biney, 2011: 81). I will of an increase in joblessuse these same measures Nkrumah announced the objective of ness and inequality. By any to compare Ghana before, measure, this is a failure after, and during the im- the democratic government of Ghana of the objective to ameplementation of SAP polliorate poverty in Ghana. to abolish “poverty, ignorance, and icies in the 1980s with an disease.” He planned to measure this IGNORANCE emphasis on the difference in development between progress by improvement in health, After independence, Gharural and urban areas. education and health education, and the availability of water na’s care policies were fairly and electricity in the “towns and villag- universalist providing free POVERTY Initially, Ghana experi- es” and by the ability of the citizens to health care and education enced a drastic economic until the early 1980s when manage their own affairs. change in the wake of SAPs were introduced by SAP implementation. The the PNDC (Abukari, 2015: country increased its industrial capacity from ap1). After SAP implementation, parents had to share proximately 25% in the 1970’s to 46% in the 1980s the cost of sending their children to pre-tertiary (Hutchful, 2002: 58). From the early 1980s to the school. The immediate effects of this policy were priearly 1990s, Ghana’s gross national investment mary school enrollments dropping. Between 1980 (GNI) rose from 3.7% to 16% and inflation deand 1988 there was a negative 4.22 percent change creased from an annual rate of 73% to 13% (Hutchin primary school enrollments (Abukari, 2015: 2). ful, 2002: 57). Per capita, income rose by 2.6% and The students who did attend school received a qualagricultural output increased by 4.6% (Boafo-Arity of education that was poorer than those who thur, 1999: 46). By these measures, SAPs were a succame before them in the era of universal free public cess in Ghana, they helped to pull the country out schooling. Government expenditures on public edof economic crisis and increased the growth indicaucation between 1970 and 1983 fell from 3.9% of tors of production, income, and investment. In the the GDP to a measly .85% of the GDP compared view of the World Bank and the IMF, development to an average of 2.8% for other low-income Afriis synonymous with national economic growth can states (Kraus, 1991: 22). Because of the lack of (Konadu‐Agyemang, 2001: 36) and the PNDC was funding, schools became dilapidated, teachers fled lauded for being one of the most “successful” examor did not work, and many poor and rural parents ples of SAP use (Toye 1991: 155). But these do not could not afford uniforms, textbooks, or paper for necessarily indicate overall wellbeing of the citizenry. students making school attendance more difficult.

Poverty in Ghana was actually greater following the implementation of SAPs than before (KonaDISEASE du‐Agyemang, 2001: 31). The Gini coefficient Access to quality healthcare, clean drinking wameasure of income inequality for Ghana has been ter, and electricity has had a relative increase for on the rise since the 1980s. In 1986, Ghana had a those living in urban areas, but SAPs have failed Gini coefficient of 35.3 compared to a 2012 Gini to provide greater access to these critical resources of 42.4 (World Bank). The gap between the poorfor those in rural areas. Before SAPs Ghana had a est 10% and the richest 10% has widened, with universalist policy towards health care. Health serthe richest consuming 6.8 times the amount of the vices could be accessed equally by rich and poor, poorest (Cooke, 2016: 2). The inequality divide is but unfortunately, the universalist system that Ghamost apparent when comparing rural and urban na developed was not sustainable for an increasing areas. Households in urban areas have an average population size and somewhat contributed to the poverty rate of 10.6% where rural areas have an economic decline that led the PNDC to seek help average poverty rate of 37.9% and this gap is also from the World Bank and IMF (Abukari, 2015: 2). widening as the urban poverty rate continues to In the 1980s, because of cutbacks on government drop much faster than the rural rate (Cooke, 2016: expenditure and rising user-fees for healthcare, 1). In the first three years of SAP implementation, the Rawlings administration started a policy that Ghana did receive a real minimum wage increase was referred to as “Cash and Carry.” This policy of 75% but given the severe disparity between required that hospitals and other health providthose in rural and urban areas, it can be inferred ers be paid an out-of-pocket payment in cash bethat much of this gain went to benefit those in urfore any services were administered to the patient ban regions and not the country overall (Anyinam, with exemptions for “children, indigent, pregnant

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women, and treatment of certain diseases of pubample of the World Bank portraying Lesotho’s need lic interest” (Abukari, 2015: 2). This introduction for help in much more drastic terms than existed of fees discouraged many Ghanaians from acin reality. But the World Bank and IMF also uticessing care they were once able to receive free of lize the “Anti-Politics Machine” when it comes to charge. In just one year, 1985 to 1986, outpatient neo-liberal interventions through SAPs in low- and health services fell nearly 50% (Abukari, 2015: 6). middle-income countries. These neo-liberal instituAfter the implementation of SAPs water and tions constructed and defined the concept of “less electricity were privatized under the free market developed countries” and determine in their own ethos of the World Bank and the IMF. The rates for terms what problems these countries face. Often, water access increased between 150% to 11,150%, the “aid” that is provided in an effort to “develelectricity by 47% to 80% and health fees by 800% op” has the one goal of liberalizing the country so to 1,000% (Anyinam, 1994: 455). Increased user that it can participate in the free market exchange fees made health services and clean water unaffordwith western countries. In the case of Lesotho, the able to the average worker and to many individuals World Bank constructed the problems of “isolain rural areas (Boafo-Arthur, 1999: 49). The detion,” “lack of market” and described the country as creased access to clean water had very real conse“traditional” (Ferguson, 1994: 176-7). The World quences to the public health of Ghana. Before SAPs, Bank created solutions to these problems under Ghana had nearly eradicated the Guinea Worm, the guise of “developing” the country without ever which is spread through individuals drinking and discussing the inherent politics of their actions. collecting unclean water. The increase in rates for In Ghana, the “Anti-Politics Machine” worked clean water corresponded with a drastic increase in in many of the same ways. During the Cold War, the incidence of Guinea Worm in poor, rural comGhana’s tendency toward socialism was considered munities (Manji and Patrick Burnett, 2005: 166). a threat that needed to be neutralized by the west.

As in many countries, access to health care and With help from the C.I.A, Ghana lost its overtly services is dependent on a person’s income and place anti-capitalist independence leader, and within 20 of residence. Although in the 1980s only 36% of years had a leader and party which welcomed develall Ghanaians lived in urban areas, they accounted opment rhetoric and accepted aid from the IMF and for over 42% of the budget for government healththe World Bank with the condition of liberalizing. care spending and a decade after the introduction SAPs helped to temporarily pull Ghana’s economy of SAPs, this measure of out of a crisis and increased inequality only increased to the GDP, GNI, and per 49% rather than decrease Often, the “aid” that is provided in an capita income. Although (Manji and Patrick Burthese can indicate greateffort to “develop” has the one goal nett, 2005: 3). In 1989, er economic success in a of liberalizing the country so that only 12% of the overall country, this is not the IMF healthcare budget was spent it can participate in the free market and the World Bank’s prion the poorest 20% of the mary reason for liberalizing. exchange with western countries. population (Manji and SAPs helped Ghana Patrick Burnett, 2005: 3). increase its ability to inIn Ghana, SAPs have only served to exacerdustrialize and improved infrastructure, but these bate existing issues in the rural-urban divide for improvements were made to the detriment of othaccess to health services and public health resourcer resources. Of the total funds loaned to Ghana es and education. The programs helped to make through SAPs, 37.1% were earmarked for the imthe rich, centered around urban areas, richer, and provement of roads and train networks (Anyinam, the poor, centered around rural areas, poorer. Yet 1994: 452). Similar amounts of expenditure were the World Bank and IMF have declared Ghanot put towards health or education, areas in which na to be one of the best examples of the success Ghanaians suffered after SAP implementation. But of SAPs. This begs the question if SAPs are not the improvement of infrastructure did allow for meant to provide aid to the country in question better access to Ghana’s natural resources. After and its citizens, what do SAPs and neo-liberal SAP implementation, Ghana increased its export intervention do for the low- or middle-income output. Initially, there was a sharp increase in its country, and what do they do for the western mono-crop, cocoa, but then this declined and gave countries and institutions which provide them? way to an increase in gold mining (Boafo-Arthur, 1999: 51). This effect of SAPs also disproportionAGENCY ately impacts certain regions over others, further In his 1990 book, The Anti-Politics Machine, James contributing to the urban-rural divide. Farmers Ferguson critiques the then emerging industry of from Ashanti villages close to the coast and the capdevelopment and its persistent failure reach its statital city of Accra received 94% of the gross cocoa ed goals. Ferguson (1994: 177) argues that developincome in 1987 compared to farmers across the nament organizations, rather than provide sustainable tion (Kraus, 1991: 26). Those who lived near the aid, “rearrange reality” in a way that looks favorably mines experienced negative impacts to their health on the aid organization. The “machine” itself masks because of environmental degradation, while Ghathe underlying politics that inform and define the naian mining companies operating out of urban actions of the organization to protect itself from areas received the bulk of the benefit rather the rucriticism. To make his point, Ferguson used the case ral mining communities (Boafo-Arthur, 1999: 51). study of development projects in Lesotho between Although imports rose, Ghana was unable to 1975 and 1984. Ferguson (1994: 177) uses an exreceive the direct effect of the increase in profits

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that resulted from increased mining and exportatheory speaks on the behalf of the Global South tion. SAPs created incentives for exporting goods, rather than with the voices of scholars from the but it also sharply devalued the Ghanaian currency Global South. Although it does the work of explain($1=2.75 Ghanaian cedis in 1983 to $1=c337 in ing the logical fallacy of Modernization theory, it 1990), making exchange more favorable to richer does not provide solutions or a theoretical construcwestern countries (Kraus, 1991: 24). Dependention of how the “world-system” can begin to move cy theorists view this type of action by neo-liberal away from dependency. In contrast, the Black Radorganizations as a reproduction of imperialist and ical Tradition is an attempt to center the voices of colonial relationships. Dependency theory is predischolars who are from the Global South. It emerged cated on the argument that resources are taken from as a critique of colonialism, but as colonialism has “periphery” (low to middle income) countries by evolved through the “Anti-Politics Machine,” the “core” (high income) countries. Dependency theory tradition is an important dialectic to understand the is a contrast to Modernization theory which holds consequences of development. President Nkrumah that each country progresses through natural stages clearly expressed a desire for agency and stressed of development and some countries are superior in the importance of elevating leaders from low- and that they progress faster than others. Dependency middle-income countries. The work of the Black theory states that many wealthy countries were able radical scholar, Frantz Fanon, both complicates the to gain their wealth, in part, because of the resourcidea of agency post-imperialism and explains how es taken from low to middle income countries. Acneo-liberal intervention only exacerbated existing cording to dependency theorists, SAPs are designed disparities between rural and urban areas in Ghato recreate and reproduce the inequal relationship na. In his 1961 book, The Wretched of the Earth, between the core and periphery. The periphery Fanon (156) discussed the tendency of the middle sells labor and resources to the core and purchasclass in formerly colonized countries to take over es back the goods that are manufactured with their the role of the national bourgeoisie and rather than own labor and resources from the core countries. challenge the pre-existing power relations, become Unequal exchange is created the oppressors of their own and maintained as periphery countrymen. This dynamic The IMF, World Bank and other countries sell their resources was also present in Ghana, at a low price and purchase multi-lateral organizations that in the period after the impleback the manufactured goods of six IMF reform for the large part represent the mentation at a much higher price. The packages, “Ghana experienced countries in the G-7, received poor countries are kept poor unprecedented repression unby richer, western countries der the rule of the PNDC” more than 70% of Ghana’s and thus form the depen(Boafo-Arthur, 1999: 46). The external debt payments.

These dent relationships that appear new national bourgeoisie perimpossible to break from. western countries profited from petuated the economic system Debt is a primary reason of their oppressors and allowed for why escaping a dependent Ghana’s exports, the sale of over- the neo-liberal interventions relationship is so difficult. Gha- priced manufactured goods, and to widen the gap between rich na’s economic reform through and poor at their own benefit. debt which they constructed.

SAPs was financed by more The last of Nkrumah’s meathan six billion dollars in loans sures for success in Ghana was from the World Bank (Konadu‐Agyemang, 2001: the ability of the citizens to manage their own af7). As of 2001, Ghana was the 41st most indebted fairs (Biney, 2011: 81). Although following colocountry in the world and the majority of this debt nialism, Ghanaians were in power of their internal was accrued during its SAP era (Konadu‐Agyemang, affairs, SAPs stripped the country’s policy makers 2001: 25). In the 1980s, Ghana was spending four from the ability to make specific choices about the times more on re-paying debt than it was on health allocation of government funds and under neo-libcare, which is part of the austerity measures that had eralism, the new national bourgeoisie acted as the negative impacts for the health of poor, rural people “businessman” and not the “captain of industry,” (Konadu‐Agyemang, 2001: 26). The IMF, World still yielding to western nations to make economBank and other multi-lateral organizations that for ic decisions for the state (Fanon, 1961: 157). the large part represent the countries in the G-7, reFanon and other Black radical theorists provide ceived more than 70% of Ghana’s external debt paya nuanced understanding of the experience of coloments (Konadu‐Agyemang, 2001: 27). These westnialism and imperialism that other theories do not ern countries profited from Ghana’s exports, the sale offer. Despite this, there is also a deliberate attempt of overpriced manufactured goods, and debt which by neo-liberal institutions and the “Anti-Politics they constructed. This was done at the intentionMachine” to ignore the voices of scholars from the al expense of the citizens of Ghana and the effect Global South. The theory of scholars such as prowas masked by the “Anti-Politics Machine” which fessors Kwadwo Konadu-Agyemang and Kwame neo-liberal institutions used to appear as though Boafa-Arthur, who are both Ghanaian and whom they were providing aid to low- income countries.

I cite throughout this analysis, must be embraced While dependency theory can illustrate the inin the greater discourse around “development” justice of the World Bank and IMF’s neo-liberal inand their voices should be prioritized over western tervention into Ghana and the deliberate machinascholars. Post-development lead by scholars like tions to use Ghana and other countries for profit, it Ferguson, can make critical contributions to the still comes from a western perspective. Dependency imagining of a world that is not dominated by a

western, capitalist hegemony, but it risks perpetuating the same power dynamics that it critiques if it is not informed by voices from the Black Radical tradition and other scholars in the Global South.

In the years following neo-liberal intervention, evaluating Ghana on the measures set out by President Nkrumah, the abolishment of “poverty, ignorance, and disease” and the ability of the citizens to manage their own affairs, it becomes clear that SAPs have done little to advance these goals, rather further entrenched existing inequalities. While many urban areas of Ghana have benefited from neo-liberal intervention, they have done so at a rate that is disproportionate to the greater rural areas.

Resources slowly diffusing through the country cannot account for the gap, but the deliberate design of SAPs to strategically develop infrastructure for the monetary gain of outside actors can. Although the social, political, and economic consequences of SAPs and neo-liberal intervention in Ghana cannot be undone, there has been an emergence of both policies and grassroots organizing that have the goal of closing the gap between rural and urban communities. The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was introduced in 2003 and provides almost universal health care to citizens who apply.

It is paid for through the Value-Added Tax and is considered a “pro-poor” policy, as most taxed goods are sold in urban areas while those in rural areas participate more in the informal economy. Although there are still some logistical barriers to entry that make it more difficult for rural citizens to sign up or maintain their insurance, this is a vastly different policy from “Cash and Carry” and is a departure from the neo-liberal recommendations. In 1957 Ghana enacted Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) but it did not become a reality until it was re-enacted in 1996. Rural schools still suffer from dilapidated buildings and lack of teachers, but enrollment has been increasing in rural areas since the decline in the SAP era (Abukari, 2015: 5). With more policies and organizing that depart from the neo-liberal recommendations of the SAP era, Ghana and other former colonies can break-away from dependency and begin to repair the consequences of neo-liberal intervention.

REFERENCES Abukari, Ziblim, Ahmed Bawa Kuyini, and Abdulai Kuyini Mohammed. 2015. “Education and Health Care Policies in Ghana: Examining the Prospects and Challenges of Recent Provisions.” SAGE. Anyinam, Charles. 1994. “Spatial Implications of Structural Adjustment Programmes in Ghana.”

Journal of Economic and Social Geography.

Wiley. 85 (5) pp. 446-460.

Biney, Ama. 2011. The Political and Social Thought of Kwame Nkrumah. Palgrave Macmillan.

Boafo-Arthur, Kwame. 1999. “Ghana: Structural Adjustment, Democratization, and the Politics of Continuity.” African Studies Review. Cambridge University Press. 42 (2) pp. 41-72 Bourret, F. M. 1949. Ghana—The Road to Independence. Stanford University Press.

Cooke, Edgar, Sarah Hague, and Andy McKay.

2016. “The Ghana Poverty and Inequality Report: Using the 6th Ghana Living Standards Survey.” UNICEF Ghana.

Fanon, Frantz. 1961. “National Culture” in The Wretched Earth (Les Damnés de la Terre).

Grove Press. pp 153-157.

Ferguson, James and Larry Lohman. 1994. “The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development” and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho.” The Ecologist.

24 (5) pp. 176-181.

Hersh, Seymour M. 1978. “C.I.A. Said to Have Aided Plotters Who Overthrew Nkrumah in Ghana.” The New York Times. (https://www. nytimes.com/1978/05/09/archives/cia-saidtohave-aided-plotters-who-overthrew-nkrumahin-ghana.html) Hutchful, Eobe. 2002. Ghana’s Adjustment Experience: The Paradox of Reform. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. Oxford.

Konadu-Agyemang, Kwadwo. 2000. “The Best of Times and the Worst of Times: Structural Adjustment Programs and Uneven Development in Africa: The Case of Ghana.” Professional Geographer. 52 pp. 469-483.

Konadu‐Agyemang, Kwadwo. 2001. IMF and World Bank Sponsored Structural Adjustment Programs in Africa: Ghana’s Experience, 19831999. Ashgate Publishing.

Konadu‐Agyemang, Kwadwo and Adanu Sesime.

2003. “The Changing Geography of Export Trade in Ghana under Structural Adjustment Programs: Some Socioeconomic and Spatial Implications.” Professional Geographer. 55(4) pp. 513-527.

Kraus, Jon. 1991. “The Struggle over Structural Adjustment in Ghana.” Indiana University Press. Africa Today. 38 (4) pp, 19-37.

Manji, Firoze Madatally and Patrick Burnett.

2005. “African Voices on Development and Social Justice.” Pambazuka Press.

Toye, John. 1991. “Ghana.” in Aid and Power: The

World Bank and Policy-Based Lending in the 1980s. Vol.2. New York: Routledge.

World Bank. “GDP (Current US$).” The World Bank. Date accessed Dec. 16, 2018. (https:// data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP. MKTP.CD?locations=GH) World Bank. “GINI index (World Bank estimate).”

The World Bank. Date accessed Dec. 16, 2018. (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV. GINI)

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The “Veil” Against Black Men on the Run Katie Wegner

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As an undergraduate student, the sociologist Alice Goffman began an ethnographic research project, ultimately living for six years in a low-income neighborhood of Philadelphia she called “6th Street” among a group of young Black men and their families and friends (2014:2). These men perpetually faced various criminal charges and ended up “on the run” from the police, throwing their lives into constant uncertainty. Although Goffman’s ethnography has received criticism for uncertain ethics and reliability, her narrative does expose the excessive police surveillance and dearth of opportunities that this group of men and their connections faced.

The theoretical frameworks that the sociologists W.E.B. Du Bois and Émile Durkheim conceived help illuminate the structural processes surrounding the plight of the residents of 6th Street. We can understand their status in terms of Du Bois’ concept of the “veil,” or an exclusive barrier between Whites and Blacks ([1903] 2004:23). Due to structural racism, a veil separates the residents of 6th Street from official society and mainstream institutions. The veil leads 6th Street residents to experience Du Bois’ related concept of “double consciousness,” the tension stigmatized groups feel between their own lives and conflicting societal expectations. In addition, the Philadelphia community as a whole lacks the functional relations Durkheim called “mechanical” and “organic solidarity.” Du Bois and Durkheim’s theories, centered around the veil, reveal that Goffman’s friends’ troubled lives form part of a broader oppressive structure.

As Goffman’s ethnography demonstrates, a veil stands between the White-dominated society and the 6th Street community on both a structural and interpersonal level due to longstanding racial and economic injustice against the residents. W.E.B. Du Bois introduces the concept of the veil as an image of the prejudice Blacks like him experience daily. As a child, when a peer rejected Du Bois because of his race, he awoke to the prevalence of racism: “I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil” ([1903] 2004:23). According to Howard Winant (2004), Du Bois applies the concept of the veil to racial injustice on both an individual and societal level (1). On the societal scale, African Americans have experienced economic deprivation as a result of discrimination. Du Bois writes, “[The Black person] felt his poverty; without a cent, without a home, without land, tools, or savings, he had entered into competition with rich, landed, skilled neighbors” ([1903]2004:24). Black working- and lower-class Philadelphians have felt the blunt of this injustice and economic distress. As Alice Goffman explains, from the 1930s to the 1980s they faced “restrictive racial housing covenants… growing un-

employment, the erosion of social services, an expanding drug trade, and the departure of much of the Black middle class from the poor and segregated areas of major cities” (2014:2). Due to this legacy of racial discrimination multiplying economic hardship, many Black Philadelphians, like those on 6th Street, have found themselves in poverty without opportunities for economic advancement.

In the last half century, the veil also has made its force felt in increased punishment for crimes in predominantly Black neighborhoods. According to Goffman (2014), beginning in the 1970s, the government increased the sentences for street crimes like drug dealing and deployed strengthened police forces to cities to enforce them (1). This crackdown aimed to improve safety, but it also was motivated by fear of those behind the veil: the poor, Black urban community. This targeting represents a key structural manifestation of the veil damaging the 6th Street society.

As Goffman highlights, when young Black men in these heavily policed neighborhoods break the law, the veil crystallizes for them on a personal level.

According to her observations, Black males in this environment who commit crimes, even minor ones, face arrest and imprisonment more often than their White or upper-class counterparts. For instance, Goffman relates that when thirteen-year-old Tim throws rocks at his teacher who is pursuing him, he is charged with aggravated assault (Goffman 2014:109). Also, when police officers stop Alice (who is White), her female friend, and her Black friends Mike and Chuck, they begin aggressively searching the two men and arrest Mike for drug possession but do not give much thought to Alice and her friend (Goffman 2014:132). After the men Goffman studied commit an infraction, they become entangled in legal charges. On probation, they may be arrested for small violations of their terms like “drinking or staying out late” or withholding fines (2014:113). Those who make such violations receive warrants for their arrest, and with this bad legal standing are labeled as “dirty” by the community (Goffman 2014:5-6). Because the criminal justice system often targets Black men as “dangerous,” men like Mike, Alex, and Chuck become trapped in a stigmatized legal and social status.

Once they are “on the run” or “dirty,” the veil between these men and official society thickens, just as Du Bois later described the veil as “not a thin film but a thick glass barrier… that cuts off all sound and communication” (Winant 2004:3).

Men evading criminal charges become isolated from official society because of their possibility of arrest. According to Goffman, they cannot interact with mainstream institutions such as hospitals or stores or even attend funerals without fear of arrest

(Goffman 2014:viii,6). This means they may choose pain of double consciousness because it is nearly not to venture into these public spaces, even at high impossible to live up to the standards of dominant costs. For instance, Goffman describes that when American society from their community’s marginher friend Alex is attacked, he loses his teeth but alized position. refuses to go to the emergency room for fear that Further, because the 6th Street community and the hospital will notice he has violated the terms outside society are separated by a veil of structural of his parole by staying out too late and send him inequality and criminalization, the overall Philadelback to prison (Goffman 2014:ix). Through crimiphia social order does not reflect Émile Durkheim’s nalization, a reinforced veil estranges those on 6th theories of either “mechanical” or “organic solidarStreet considered “dirty” from key segments of the ity.” Durkheim defines “mechanical solidarity” as community. a strong system of common ideals and beliefs, or Because the veil of economic deprivation and “collective conscience,” that unites a group of peolegal stigmatization separates them from the widple ([1893] 2017:94). However, the residents of er society, the young men on 6th Street and their 6th Street and the more powerful outside society loved ones experience what W.E.B. Du Bois terms do not share enough ideals to exemplify mechani“double consciousness.” Elaborating on the plight cal solidarity. External authorities seek to arrest and of Black Americans like himself, Du Bois writes, “It incarcerate offenders like Mike, Chuck, and Alex is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, because they perceive them as threats, whereas the this sense of always looking at one’s self through the 6th Street residents aim to help them escape punisheyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of ment. Along these lines, Durkheim defines crime as a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. an act which conflicts with the beliefs of the majorOne ever feels his twoness- an American, a Negro… ity but does not offend the lawbreaker’s sensibilities. seeking to satisfy two unreconciled ideals” ([1903] This definition applies to the 6th Street individu2017:23). According to Du Bois, White America als. Although the men in question and their social expects African Americans to follow certain norms networks likely still agree with the authorities that such as upward mobility, but at the same time labels actions such as drug dealing are wrong, they disthem as inferior and prevents them from fulfilling agree on how severe the retribution for these actions these expectations. As a result, maintaining both a should be. These conflicting beliefs and their correBlack and an American identity presents internal sponding behaviors—seeking either punishment or conflict. In the same way, residents of 6th Street, escape—disallow mechanical solidarity between the both men on the run and the “clean” individuals officials and the members of 6th Street. around them, feel a sense of double consciousness According to Goffman’s ethnography, the widfrom their stigmatized status. While society holds er Philadelphia society, encompassing both those on these young men to expectations of completing 6th Street and the authorities, also does not exhibit their sentences, obtaining secure legal jobs, and Durkheim’s concept of “organic solidarity.” With refraining from further crimes, the stigma of their this term, Durkheim refers to a social order with records holds them back from attaining these idedivided labor where everyone has a specialized ocals. Most employers will not hire ex-offenders like cupation and depends on everyone else. However, them, and the strict rules of probation mean that for a social system to operate in this unified way, the smallest offense may send them to prison.

Durkheim qualifies that each person’s occupation The family members and girlfriends of crimimust suit their skills and interests ([1893] 2017:97). nalized young men like Mike, Chuck, and Alex also The men and women in Goffman’s study serve difexperience a “double consciousness” when they try fering functions: police officer and lawyer on the to protect their loved ones from arrest but must opone hand, and criminal suspect and accomplice on pose legal authorities to do so. For example, Chuck’s the other hand. However, these latter specializations mother, Miss Linda, refuses to hand her son Reggie do not meet the criteria of matching the young over to the police when they come looking for him, men’s capabilities and desires, so organic solidariso they “threatened to take her youngest son, Tim, ty cannot exist between them and the rest of the away and cut off her welfare” (Goffman 2014:127). society.

According to Goffman, members of the 6th Street Durkheim explains that in a system with strong community like Miss Linda feel conflicting obliclass stratification, strife overtakes the organic flow gations to both law enforcement officials and their of interdependence because the “the distribution of community: cooperating social functions… no longer with the law by turning in responds to the distribution According to Du Bois, White their loved ones or shieldof natural talents” ([1893] America expects African Ameri- 2017:97). A class system, ing them from legal action.

These “unreconciled ideals” cans to follow certain norms such consisting of economic and disturb their state of mind. especially criminal status, Following local norms, these as upward mobility, but at the same locks Goffman’s friends on time labels them as inferior and community members usual6th Street into a subordinate ly err on the side of protect- prevents them from fulfilling these social position. These young ing others from the police, men with criminal records and thus receive threats and expectations. As a result, maintain- cannot obtain jobs to move condemnation from the ing both a Black and an American up in the social order; they powers on the other side of “aspire to functions which identity presents internal conflict. are closed to them,” leadthe veil. Residents of 6th Street suffer from the intense ing to a “pathological state”

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(Durkheim [1893] 2017:97). As Goffman relates, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Retrieved “School and jobs do afford them [most teenagers] March 1, 2019 (http://dx.doi.org.proxy. some chance to work hard and reap the benefits of wm.edu/10.4135/9781483328843). their efforts. In contrast, much of a young man’s Durkheim, Émile. [1893] 2017. “The Division of passage through the penal system reminds him Labor in Society.” Pp. 94-99 in Social Theory: every day that he is at the mercy of larger forces The Multicultural and Classic Readings, edited that do not wish him well” (2014:137). In a hostile

by Charles Lemert. Boulder: Westview Press. legal, social, and economic order, young men with Goffman, Alice. 2014. On the Run: Fugitive Life charges against them have little chance at occupyin an American City. Chicago: University of ing occupational or social roles other than that of Chicago Press. a criminal. In contrast to most social gatherings, Winant, Howard. 2004. “Dialectics of the Veil.” Pp. the legal trials that shape the community’s lives “are 1-17 in The New Politics of Race: Globalism, rituals of diminishment and degradation, not celeDifference, Justice. Minneapolis: University bration or accomplishment” (Goffman 2014:137). of Minnesota Press. Retrieved March 1, 2019 With some of its members playing the stigmatized, (http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/winant/Diaundesirable roles of criminal suspects, the Philadellectics%20of%20the%20Veil.pdf ). phia community cannot maintain organic solidarity.

In a hostile legal, social, and The theories of W.E.B. Du Bois and Émile Durkheim help economic order, young men us interpret the struggles of with charges against them the young men Alice Goffman have little chance at occupystudied as more than products of their individual personal ing occupational or social roles failings. On the contrary, Goffman’s ethnography depicts that other than that of a criminal. a veil consisting of economic inequality, intensive police scrutiny, and stringent legal sentences estranges them from the rest of the community. Mainstream institutions such as hospitals replicate the surveilling behavior of the police so they are constantly under fear of arrest and cannot lead a normal existence. This dilemma represents a double consciousness for the young men in legal trouble and their social networks. They must meet a certain standard of “clean” behavior and legitimate employment, but at the same time the stigma of criminalization bars them from reaching these societal expectations. Similarly, police pressure to surrender information about suspects buffets the men’s relatives and friends, but they experience double consciousness because they cannot betray their loved ones to the police. Furthermore, with warring concepts of fair punishment held by those on the run and legal authorities, the community cannot embody Durkheim’s idea of mechanical solidarity.

The region also cannot operate with organic solidarity because young Black men with legal records have little chance to advance to suitable economic roles.

Du Bois and Durkheim’s theories, applied to Alice Goffman’s ethnography, help clarify the unfair and disheartening circumstances for the residents of 6th Street, as well as their counterparts in other locations. With this revelation, it becomes clear that fairer policies surrounding law enforcement and employment are needed to ameliorate the situation of young Black adults in poor communities.

The underlying economic inequalities against them also demand addressing. Sustained action is needed against unjust social structures affecting communities like 6th Street in order to begin to transform the veil that impedes their residents.

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REFERENCES Du Bois, W.E.B. [1903] 2004. “Of Our Spiritual Strivings.” Pp. 23-26 in The Social Theory of W.E.B. Du Bois, edited by Phil Zuckerman.

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Legislation, Culture, and Stigma Surrounding Women’s Rights to Publicly Breastfeed Eveie Godino SOCIAL BARRIERS The social stigma against breastfeeding exists in the American workplace, social and public institutions, and in familial interactions. When a woman decides to breastfeed her child, she is met with a multitude of barriers. If she is at work, does that company provide facilities besides restrooms for nursing or pumping milk? What public places offer a private and clean breastfeeding space for mothers who are eating, shopping, or perhaps taking a walk in a park?

Popular television show What Would You Do? has featured many episodes in which they stage breastfeeding mothers in public places to gage the response of the public. Often, the responses range from nonchalance, to disgust, to smiles and kind words of support. In one episode, a mother was staged at a table in a dinner and instructed to “breastfeed” a doll while a paid actor said things such as, “Can you do that in the bathroom?” and “You really shouldn’t do that while people are eating" (ABC News 2018). These situations represented the common notion that breastfeeding is unsanitary and should not be performed in public.

The CDC maintains statistics on rates of infants that are breastfed via national telephone surveys to the homes of parents. For 2015, there were 3,978,497 births in the United States (Joyce et al.

2017). Based on the home telephone surveys for infants born in 2015, 80.7% – 83.0% of Virginia-born infants were reportedly “ever” breastfed at some point. This can be compared to the 63.2% Mississippi- born infants and 93.1% of Alaska-born infants who were ever breastfed at some point. The general recommendation in America is for infants to be exclusively breastfed for their first six months of life (Brown 2017:180). In 2015, about 62.5% of infants had a diet that included breast milk at the age of six months. This ranged from 35.4% in Mississippi, to 72.7% in Washington state, of infants that had a diet which included breast milk at six months.

Given the almost 4 million births annually in the US, it would make sense from an economic perspective that retail and dining establishments offer supportive facilities for breastfeeding mothers. This would open up the market to mothers who may feel uncomfortable breastfeeding in public and avoid potential hazing of mothers for their choice in feeding their child in the most natural and nutritious way. The national retailer Target is known for supporting diversity and celebrates the uniqueness of all of their consumers. One location in Williamsburg, Virginia recently renovated their fitting rooms to

include new modern gender-neutral fitting rooms.

Additionally, they added a comfortable and quiet nursing room at the back of the new fitting rooms that includes a reclining leather arm chair and two coffee tables (See Figure 1). Actions like this by large companies are essential because they display public support of an important public health operation,

Figure 1: Target on Monticello Avenue, Williamsburg, VA

create a welcoming environment for breastfeeding mothers to shop, and aide in normalizing breastfeeding in everyday places.

Higher education institutions are also taking action to create spaces that encourage breastfeeding.

In 2018, the College of William & Mary opened the McLeod Tyler Wellness which includes a lactation room, seen in Figure 2, equipped with an arm chair, coffee table, and sink. This is a step towards an inclusive environment for students, staff, and faculty of the College. In the future, hopefully more lactation rooms will be incorporated around the campus for ease of access and convenience to mothers.

Figure 2: Lactation rom at William & Mary Welness Center

Legislation was passed in 2010 requiring work places to provide time and space for new mothers to pump their breast milk at work. Efforts have been made in retail locations and on college campuses, but how about office environments across the country? WorkingMother.com published an article high-

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lighting some of the best lactation facilities in workplaces across the country. Making the top of the list is international advertising company, Leo Burnett.

Their office features a 500 square foot room boasting a full-sized fridge for milk, microwaves, lockers, sinks, and new mother books for employees to read while they pump (Midia 2017).

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MEDICAL BARRIERS AND RESPONSES A frequent complaint by breastfeeding mothers is nipple pain. This can commonly be caused by an improper latch by the infant. When the infant is in a position where they cannot draw the nipple far enough back into their mouth to engage the milk ducts, they are simply suckling on the nipple skin which can cause irritability and soreness (Brown 193). When a child is able to draw the nipple far enough into the mouth, they can activate the letdown reflex which triggers the milk to flow from the milk glands, through the ducts, and through the nipple. There are a number of different positions a nursing child can be placed in to improve the latch, and therefore reduce potential pain to the mother during breastfeeding.

It is becoming increasingly possible to engage with a lactation counselor in many hospitals prior to and immediately after birth. Some hospitals, such as Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, have lactation consultants available to new mothers seven days a week (Sentara 2019). This is a resource that makes help readily available and can reduce frustration and pain that may occur early on as a mother attempts breastfeeding. The Healthy Children Project has a Center for Breastfeeding which actually offers a range of lactation certification courses from a basic five-day certification, to 128 hours-worth of continued education and training.

These courses teach the consultant-in-training the proper counseling techniques and practical skills to most effectively counsel the new mother (Healthy Children Project 2019). When women have a live person there, they can receive the education and support they need to obtain a successful breastfeeding schedule. Hopefully in the future this resource will be obtainable to a majority of women.

Serious medical conditions can result from breastfeeding if proper care of the breasts and hygiene is not practiced, so it is critical to educate mothers to prevent such occurrences. Mastitis is inflammation of the breast usually caused by a bacterial infection of the milk duct. This can occur from several improper breastfeeding practices and can result in fever in the mother and require antibiotics to clear up. Lack of treatment could result in septicemia in the mother and some antibiotic treatment of the mother could even require breastfeeding to stop while the mother is being treated. It is therefore essential that mastitis is prevented rather than treated.

Another issue some mothers may face is engorgement, which occurs when a woman’s breasts painfully overfill with milk. Causes can include excess initial filling of the breasts shortly after delivery, breasts not being drained after feedings, suddenly stopping breastfeeding, or going too long without breastfeeding (Healthwise Staff 2018). The initial excessive filling of milk post-partum usually regulates after a few days or dries up if a woman elects

not to breastfeed. Sometimes engorgement can make it difficult for a baby to latch properly, or the condition can cause the nipples to become dry and cracked. These can both make it more difficult for the breast to be drained. It is recommended by the Michigan University School of Medicine that when mothers experience engorgement, they try a warm compress before breastfeeding, Motrin, or try to express some milk by hand to make it easier for the baby to latch.

THE PROBLEM’S ORIGINS There is no shortage of laws that strive to protect the rights of breastfeeding mothers. The benefits of breastfeeding a child is clear, and research-backed information is steadily becoming more and more accessible to the public. In spite of all of this knowledge, there are still pockets of people who believe that breastfeeding, especially in public, is inappropriate. The opinions against public breastfeeding seem to stem from specific individual’s lack of comfort with breastfeeding. In other words, their overall view of breastfeeding is negative. How did this negative notion of breastfeeding emerge? What can be done about it? There are laws in effect to fight hazing and/or verbal abuse from person to person, but how can we eradicate the specific abuse of mothers who choose to breastfeed in public? It would seem that part of that process would be to address the hostility that arises from anti-breast feeders. For this essay specifically, I define “hazing” as a person intentionally using derogatory and/or abusive words or actions to humiliate or inflict discomfort upon another person or group of people.

YouTuber Joey Salads published a social experiment to his channel in 2016 to compare the reactions of people to seeing an attractive female model dressed in tight shorts and a lowcut crop top and a mother breastfeeding in public (2016). This video shows both women set up in the same places and records the response of pedestrians walking by. Each scenario is repeated in the same places, to include a mall atrium and bus stop, with just the female model, then just the breastfeeding mother, and then both women sitting on the same bench a few feet from each other. The female model is frequently met with smiles from men passing by. In stark contrast, a few people actually make a point to tell the breastfeeding mother that she is “disgusting”. Prior to viewing this video, I had commonly heard things such as smoking, burping, and spitting in public be referred to as “disgusting”, but never breastfeeding.

Why do some people feel so intensely repulsed by breastfeeding, and why do they feel like hazing a person engaging in the activity to be acceptable?

THE PROBLEM’S ROOT At some point in history, the natural act of breastfeeding became abnormal and socially unacceptable in some cultures. If we look at other cultures, breastfeeding, including breastfeeding outside of the home, is a norm. Cultures such as ancient Egypt, 13th century Europe, and even the 4th century Christian church have artifacts showing powerful images that depict breastfeeding mothers as fundamental parts of cultural norms. There are even modern cultures in countries such as Italy, Brazil

(Figure 3), and Sierra Leone (Figure 4) where public breastfeeding is simply an activity of daily life.

At what point in history did select cultures choose to make breastfeeding this vexatious and indecorous thing?

Figure 6: “Bestiary,” 13th Century

Figure 3: “A woman breatfeeding at a carnival in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, 2017”. Photo by Midia NINJA.

Figure 4: “A new mother in Kabala, Sierra Leone in West Africa nurses outdoors.” Photo by John Atherton.

Many artifacts have been found depicting ancient Egyptian God Isis breastfeeding her son Horus, known to the Greeks as Harpokrates (Theoi Project). See Figure 5, a statue depicting a seated Isis and son Harpa-Khruti (Harpokrates).14 Isis herself became one of the most idealized Egyptian Gods, being considered a model Egyptian wife, and still has followers in modern day in Pagan circles (Tyldesley 2019). The image of Isis breastfeeding Horus was so revered, that it became one of the most popular depictions of the goddess and would later appear on Greek currency, such as on the “Coin of Hadrian.”

Figure 5: “Isis and Horus,” By the middle ages, 664-33 B.C. breastfeeding was still appearing in art in powerful and poetic images. A thirteenth century image, Figure 6, was found depicting a pelican piercing its own chest to feed its young its own blood. We can see how appreciated and almost spiritual breastfeeding was at this point in this culture; this creature is spilling its own blood to nourish its children. Even though they had no way to know the specific science-backed nutritional benefits, this reveals that this culture recognized just how critical nursing was to children.

In the1480s, Leonardo da Vinci completed sev-

eral paintings of the Mother Mary feeding an infant Jesus. These works included the stunning The Madonna and Child (The Litta Madonna). Christianity during this time was pretty central to most European cultures, and the symbol of the Madonna was seen time and time again as a significant and powerful image. The State Hermitage Museum called The Madonna and Child (The Litta Madonna), “...the epitome of motherhood and love”.17 By the 1400s then, breastfeeding was seen as a beautiful and revered act. In an article for The Guardian, Joanna Moorhead compared the modern-day attitude of Britain towards breastfeeding against the demeanor of the di Vinci work. Moorhead stated, “Leonardo thought it entirely natural and unremarkable that a mum would be proud to be seen breastfeeding her not-even-all-that-tiny child” (Moorhead 2011).

This da Vinci work stands as a stark contrast of a culture’s historical pride in breastfeeding, versus the abashment that breastfeeding mothers are now met with in several places in Europe.

Much of the English nobility elected to use wet nurses rather than breastfeed their own children.

This was a tradition that would carry on across the water into America up until the mid-1800s. Queen Victoria, an infamous figure that held a negative opinion of breastfeeding, could have held her belief for any number of reasons; By the start of her rule, prior nobles had been hiring wet nurses for quite some time. Henry the VIII hired a wet nurse for his son in 1511, and James the 1st would also be given a wet nurse. At this point in time however, the main reasons for a wet nurse were the physical aesthetic of the queen, and the queen’s ability to become pregnant again as soon as possible.

Throughout history, it was sometimes believed that resuming sexual intercourse would ruin a mother’s milk. Also, breastfeeding tends to offer some birth control, so a breastfeeding queen was not desired in a role intended solely for producing as many heirs as possible.

The decision of selecting a wet nurse was not taken lightly, as some believed that the suckling child could inherit characteristics of the wet nurse (Licence 2013). Many nobles elected to have their lady’s maids or lower-ranking nobles breastfeed their children. A letter written in the mid-1800s to Judith Meyers in Norfolk, Virginia discussed the difficulty in finding a “white wet nurse” (Mayo 1846). This is one letter of a whole collection, called the Judith Meyer Letters, in which the author is reaching out to Meyers for both medical and friendly advice. The author said that she had experienced

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delayed lactation post-partum, and subsequently her baby boy would not take a breast. She discussed having tried to feed the child both goat and cow milk, but these caused the child horrible diarrhea for weeks. In this letter it seems that the mother tried just about everything she could before seeking any available wet nurse despite her wealthy stature.

Evidence of this is the high-quality stationary she used to write her letters despite being in Virginia in the middle of the Civil War. At some point in the 1940s, doctors began to make recommendations for baby formula that introduced a substantial amount of Karo corn syrup and evaporated milk into the diets of bottle- fed babies. A set of 1945 discharge instructions presented to a new mother, seen in Figure 7, recommended the following formula to feed the baby: 15 oz boiled water, 1 tablespoon of Dark Karo corn syrup, and 9 oz irradiated milk (Hepps 2012). Around the same time frame, ads had already begun to emerge

16 Figure 7: Discharge instructions for feedin a newborn, 1945.

from the Karo corn syrup brand depicting Karo as a seemingly revolutionary super food that could provide necessary nutrition to both World War II soldiers and babies alike. One such ad appeared in a farm journal by Good House Keeping in 1952 depicting a baby as a weight lifter while reading a book titled “How to Grow Big and Strong.” The image declares, “...Mom knows it’s a fine quick-energy food for growing children...and all us youngsters love it!”, implying astronomical benefits of feeding Karo to young children (Corn Products Refining Company 1952).

As mentioned above, there are numerous countries that have maintained a norm for women to breastfeed in public. Countries like America and England, who historically have been world powers, were usually steadfast in a rigid, ultra-conservative, and elitist mindset. We see today that people consider public breastfeeding inappropriate and sometimes even disgusting. In prior generations, not only was breastfeeding not considered lady-like, but there was also an element of racism. As seen with the letters addressed to Judith Meyers, a higher-class white mother unable to breastfeed her baby let her child continue to suffer the physical side effects of being fed inappropriate food rather than consider a non-white wet nurse. Whether or not there was a non-white nurse available to her, it is not known.

However, her acceptable criteria of a wet nurse explicitly included being “white”. This was the

mindset in both America, Europe, and several other European countries for a very long time. Queen Victoria, like many Victorian nobles, was so publicly against breastfeeding that she actually referred to her daughters as “cows” upon discovering that they had elected to breast feed their children (Licence 2013). The mindset regarding women who breastfed, which was usually women of lower socioeconomic status in European countries and America, and a larger majority of women in other countries, was that breastfeeding women were animalistic and primitive to say the least.

In 2016, daytime television star Wendy Williams hosted guest Alyssa Milano, who had recently inspired controversy when she posted a picture of herself breastfeeding on Instagram. Milano expressed that she was shocked that people were opinionated about public breastfeeding, and Williams volunteered that she was opinionated, stating, “I don’t need to see that” and later that “they (breasts) are more sexual than a feeding thing" (Lowin 2016).

This is concerning because of the platform the information is coming from. As of March 2019, her Instagram page had 1.1 million followers, and her Facebook page had 2.8 million followers. It would not be possible to figure out how many viewers saw this episode on television when it aired, but with all things considered, there is the potential for millions of people to have seen a prominent and idolized member of our society express her belief that breasts are only sexual objects. This could potentially sway a person that is on the fence about public breastfeeding to believing that it is inappropriate for public eyes. Further, it leaves viewers with negative ideas about breastfeeding in general which could challenge current public health efforts to increase national breastfeeding rate.

ADDRESSING THIS PROBLEM The specific interpretations of America’s laws are usually forged by court judgements. Judges have the enormous responsibility of setting the precedent for all future cases and legal discord. During a 2016 hearing in a North Carolina District court, a mother was told to cover up and button up her clothing as she began trying to breastfeed her eight-month old baby. The mother reports having her child in the same court the previous week where a female judge was presiding, and nothing was said to her while she breastfed. When she attempted to breastfed during this particular hearing, the judge, Peter Knight said the following: “Ma’am you need to cover up. That’s – for you to not realize that is absolutely ridiculous. Step outside and cover up right now. Stand up and go, now. I am fine with having a child if you don’t have other arrangements made, that’s certainly going to happen. But to nurse the child in the courtroom is just absolutely inappropriate. Step outside and button up! Or whatever you need to do to button up. Are you gonna be able to stay buttoned up? All right. Have a seat and finish reading the complaint" (Larimer 2016).

This type of action in a courtroom has the potential to be devastating to efforts encouraging breastfeeding in America. While there are laws in North Carolina protecting a woman’s right to breastfeed, an exchange like this, occurring specifically in a

place where laws are interpreted and enforced, has the power to render breastfeeding-encouraging laws into more of a guideline that can be sidestepped at the whim of anyone of relative power in law enforcement.

Perhaps the first actual piece of legislation to consider in the fight against the hazing of breastfeeding mothers is the First Amendment of the American Constitution. It reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances (29 Amendment I).

How can we go about making laws to prevent hate speech against mothers when a foundational part of our government includes verbal freedoms that we are guaranteed as Americans? The answer lies where a person’s or a group’s first amendment rights begin to interfere with another person’s law-protected autonomy. In 2010, a rider, Section 4207, was passed amending the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) which required employers to accommodate lactating mothers in the work place.30 Work places were then required to provide a place other than a restroom for mothers to either breastfeed or express their milk, though, the employer was not required to compensate the employee for this time. This provision, signed into effect along with the Affordable Care Act, was a step towards furthering public health efforts in America. It created a precept of fairness for both the employer’s time and the health of the employee and employee’s child alike.

It is interesting to compare how differently countries manage crime and hateful acts by their citizens. For example, the very first Amendment to the American Constitution lays out its citizen’s freedom of speech. This is legislation that has enabled women’s rights, civil rights, and LGBTQ rights, while simultaneously enabling bullying, the spread of false information, and often, indirect verbal threats and statements insinuating abuse. It can be difficult to solidify a line where this amendment stops liberating citizen’s minds’ and enables them to harm others. In complete contrast to this legislation is the 1996 Constitution of South Africa. It prohibits countless types of verbal infractions, all of which are clearly outlined in the constitution, that can be considered discriminatory and/or hate speech. For example, it prohibits ill-intending communications regarding: Age, Color, Disability, HIV status, and gender (to include gender identity)31. Maybe it is beneficial for a government to create legislation that identifies illegal hate speech so clearly. I know some may call this over-kill and say it is too much government interference on the people. The answer has to lie somewhere in the middle; One country has an extensive court system that does its best to interpret laws as the citizens aggressively nit-pick in efforts to prove each other wrong, and the other has an entire body of legislation devoted to outlining things the citizens cannot say to prevent emotional and social harm from being inflicted. At the very least, one of these countries has taken definitive action to reduce and prevent hate speech and the devastating effects that it can have.

Social media influencers such as Alyssa Milano, mentioned earlier, and Mary Helen Bowers, who runs the Instagram page “balletbeautiful” are playing a huge role in the normalization of public breastfeeding. Bowers frequently posts beautiful photographs of herself ballet dancing, and she is very open about her life as both a mother and professional ballet dancer. On March 8th 2019, Bowers posted a picture of herself (Figure 8) feeding her newest baby during a dance break to celebrate International Women’s day. Receiving approximately 12,200 “likes,” this became one of the most popular photos on her Instagram page. More and more women with large fan-bases are starting to post photos that normalize breastfeeding and depict it in a positive light. This is the type of positive portrayal that people need to see. Photographs like Figure 8 are so different from the seemingly more common pictures of mothers covering their babies with blankets or taking their children to the car to feed. Aesthetic images like this can paint a picture for the public of how beautiful and natural breastfeeding can be.

WHAT REMAINS TO BE DONE The paradigm of anti-breast feeders is not limited to any one particular gender, race, age group, socioeconomic status, or culture. In occurrences where individuals that hold high platforms in society express a negative notion towards breastfeeding, whether directly or indirectly, their message can reach masses of followers and lead people who are supportive of breastfeeding normalization to believe that they are a silent minority.

Figure 8: Instagram post of Mary Helen Bowers breatfeeding her child, 2019.

As of right now the freedom and autonomy of many breastfeeding mother’s may be limited by society as a result of public hazing, our government’s failure to make explicit legislation to control that hazing, and the blatant lack of enforcement of protective laws already in place. There is a discernable need for federal laws, or at least state-level laws, that clearly and explicitly define what constitutes verbal abuse and inappropriate actions directed towards publicly breastfeeding mothers. Eradicating the stigma against public breastfeeding is a crucial part of enabling women to be equal participants in public life.

REFERENCES ABC News. 2018. “Mother is criticized for breastfeeding her baby in public.” You-tube Web site.

Retrieved December 6, 2019 (https://www.

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Foucault on (Bio)Power Robert Metaxatos What is biopower? For Foucault, the question ‘What have you done?’ with the question: ‘Who is intimately related to ‘power’ more generally. Poware you?’ you see the jurisdictional function of the er is not top-down in the way of kings over subjects penal system being transformed … by the question or governments over citizens. Neither is it central: of veridiction” (2008:34). It becomes clear that the we cannot identify once and for all who has power “regime of truth” is an enactment of biopower by and who does not. Rather, it forms where knowlthe confluence of a set of practices “bound together edge proliferates. In these “local centers” (1978:98), by an intelligible connection” (18). Foucault’s goal the power-knowledge nexus is evident. An alarming is to bring together seemingly disparate discourses example of a local center lies at the Mexico-U.S. and show how their local centers constitute a powborder, where governmental knowledge and law ener-knowledge that attempts to establish a regime of forcement converge, and where migrant bodies contruth. In this way, we can read the history of modtinue to die. No local center could function “if … ern politics as the history of biopolitics. it did not eventually enter into an over-all strategy” Foucault also elaborated “the importance—I (99) whose “techniques of power” bear on the inalmost said vital importance—of racism to the dividual-as-body. In my interpretation of Foucault, exercise of such a power” (2003:75). For one, it is when we say power relations are “nonsubjective” interesting that biopower pervades language to the (94), they are not ‘objective’ but so overcalculated extent that Foucault—intentionally or not—slips as to obscure its origin, almost so that the thought into ‘vitality.’ I think he does so to point out the of power obtrudes as something ‘outside of us.’ But possibility of a regime of truth in language, in which this is just the manifestation of power always-alone can easily say a subject is of “vital importance” ready there. and thereby create a local center of power-knowlIn his 1975-1976 lectures at the Collège de edge. Therefore, biopower makes us unknowingly France, Foucault elaborated the concept of biopolisubject to the regulatory employments of ritualistic tics: “the entry of life into history, … into the order language. Continuing to the importance of racism of knowledge and power, into the sphere of political to the exercise of biopower, a relevant example finds techniques” (141-142). This power, by the end of itself in the institution of slavery. Governments gain the eighteenth century, had the new appearance of the power to regulate bodies; plantations ‘make’ ‘biopower,’ of control over the population in terms enslaved people live. Because biopower is “massifyof birth rate, mortality rate, hygiene, disability, and ing,” individuals are ascribable to a group identity other regulatory mechanisms. If before power was a and placed in a hierarchy. From this development disciplinary practice at the level of individuals and comes racism. There are instances in which the Bratheir bodies, it now intervenes at the level of the zilian and Mexican governments, among countless population. Important to this conceptualization is others, used racism as a technique of power. Brazil’s the transformation of sovproject of obliterating the inereign power. Foucault exdigenous body, I think, was Governments gain the power to plicates the classical theory akin to Mexico’s idealization of sovereignty as the king’s regulate bodies; plantations ‘make’ of that same body, a biopow“right to take life or let live.” project carried forth to enslaved people live. Because bio- erful If I were to steal an apple establish a ‘central’ definipower is “massifying,” individuals tion of Indianness. It is then from a market, the sovereign could order my execution. to think of biopower are ascribable to a group identity naïve This right was not replaced, as a “‘European Disorder’ or and placed in a hierarchy. but penetrated and permea specifically colonial one” ated by the “power to ‘make’ (Stoler 1995:32). Again, we live and ‘let’ die” (2003:241). Different statistical cannot identify once and for all who has power and measurements, listed above, now ensure vitality. who does not but what local centers of power, in The transmission and production of biopower conjunction with a mode of knowledge such as racis most apparent when it attempts not to discipline ism, created discourses that had truth in practice. person-as-body but regulate person-as-species.

Particular to the purposes of this essay is how What is seemingly a scientific phenomenon is imstates and their institutions not only carry out bricated with economic and legal institutions, all racism but also crimes against humanity. Achille of which together attempt to create truth. For exMbembe’s concept of “Necropolitics” (2003) revisample, before the eighteenth century, the economes Foucault’s theorization of biopolitics to include ic market was strictly regulated. But because the moments when states can kill at any time for any price-value relationship transforms under industrireason. True it may be that governments ‘make’ alization, the market becomes a site of ‘veridiction,’ enslaved people live, Mbembe wants to focus on or truth. Or consider the veridictional practice of violence and death (‘necro-’) as inherent to governmodern penology, which “addressed to the crimmental power: “The slave is … kept alive but in a inal: Who are you? When penal practice replaced state of injury, in a phantom-like world of horrors

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and intense cruelty and profanity … Slave life, in many ways, is a form of death-in-life” (21). The most morbid manifestation of biopower is, perhaps, the combination of discipline and regulation as delimiting the right to life.

I still want to clarify Foucault’s methodology in the analysis of power. Consider the following: “It [is] a matter of showing by what conjunctions a whole set of practices—from the moment they became coordinated with a regime of truth—was able to make what does not exist … nonetheless become something, something however that continues not to exist. (2008:19).” He simply wants to establish the possibility of the mutual intelligibility of disparate institutions, each of which bear the same power-knowledge. Such a method was implicit in his study on madness: “Let’s suppose madness does not exist. If we suppose it does not exist, then what can history make of these different events and practices which are apparently organized around something that is supposed to be madness” (2008:3). Where there is an institution like the clinic, which makes its whole discourse an etiology of being, there is power. For Foucault, power is caught up in techniques of power especially as they pertain to medicine or law. But I have employed the term ‘technique’ rather loosely. Foucault was not the first to use the term, which became useful in his conceptualization ‘technique of power.’ It was Jacques Ellul in The Technological Society who reminds us of the negative methodology explained above; “[E] verything,” Ellul writes, “had to be reconsidered in terms of the machine … The machine could not integrate itself into the nineteenth century; technique integrated it” (1964:5). In other words, technique is outside its object of implementation. Whence Foucault continually employed ‘technique’ in methodology: for the institutions did not come to exist in themselves, not without a technique which integrates them. Foucault ties together this concept with ‘discourse,’ the formations of which truth is made. There is no truth in itself or otherwise.

Ever relevant to biopower, one finds an example of the regime of truth in Foucault’s archaeology of abnormality. He details three ‘abnormal’ individuals of the eighteenth century: the human monster, the individual to be corrected, and the masturbator.

There is a useful excerpt which elucidates the conceptualization of power we have attempted: [A] technology of abnormal individuals appears precisely when a regular network of knowledge and power has been established that brings the three figures together or, at any rate, invests them with the same system of regularities. It is only then that a field of abnormalities will really be constituted in which the ambiguities of the monster, the incorrigible, and the masturbator will be rediscovered, but within a homogeneous and relatively less stable field. (1999:61).

The discourse must first form and ‘make true’ the abnormalities of the monster, incorrigible, and masturbator. Only then is a “field” established. Let us think more about this field: a field of intersection between general and particular, between state and individual, and between space and language. One can compare Thomas Kuhn’s popular notion of ‘paradigm,’ which attempts to identify the moment in time a paradigm-shift occurs. Foucault, rather,

wants to identify the power-relations that lead up to the paradigm shift. Often this endeavor intersects with biopower. Its contemporary manifestations are medico-legal racism, violent drone strikes, surveillance, the othering of animals, etc. Its concurrent executors are globalization, neoliberalism, and the marketization of individual subjects. If all politics is biopolitics, violence is appurtenant—I almost said central—to the exertion of power, proliferation of knowledge, and formation of discourse.

REFERENCES Ellul, Jacques. 1964. The Technological Society.

New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1. New York, NY: VintageBooks.

Foucault, Michel. 2003. “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège de France, 19751976. New York, NY: Picador.

Foucault, Michel. 2008. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978-1979.

New York, NY: Picador.

Mbembe, Achille. 2003. “Necropolitics.” Public Culture 15(1): 11-40.

Stoler, Ann Laura. 1995. Race and the Education of

Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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