Chapter 6: Pathology in Care
One of the most interesting threads in this series on care is the question of pathology in change, and how it connects with care.
When we ask what care is, we can land in many places. Care has many dimensions. One of these dimensions wraps itself in good intentions, but sickness underpins it.
During our final session, our guest, Bayo Afolomake puts his finger on the pulse when he says,
“When our attempt to rid ourselves of a sickness, or disease becomes the disease. Right? The cure becomes sick medicine, falls ill, … breaks out in a fever. In those moments, you need a break. Right? You need something to cure you out of the cyclicity of sickness, cure, sickness, cure. The binary that only calls upon itself”
This conversation feels familiar. As a feminist activist, I know intimately the ways in which dominant systems have, over time, pathologised women, in particular racialized and poor women, or women who do not fit into heteronormative boxes.
I have in fact stood in the shoes of the one who is wrong, diagnosed, in need of fixing, while experts and professionals find a way to fix the problem. In the many ways that our dominant Western culture pathologizes that which does not measure up to normal, I have stood in the shoes of not normal.
And I have watched people I care about navigate this reality too. My mother was pathologized as a young single mom. She spent a lifetime fighting for her dignity in the face of systems that dehumanized and harmed her. She has been my inspiration and I bring her into my systems change work daily.
I can speak to the ways in which such shoes become shame, to the ways in which women internalize what is deemed wrong and ugly, the ways in which fixing becomes medicalized and the person being fixed is positioned and projected as powerless. I can speak to the ways this leads to feeling powerless.
I can speak to the ways in which systems exert authority over the body in order to enforce and reinforce cultural codes of the status quo. I can speak to the ways that this wears someone down to the point of actual physical illness, and how it can criminalize people and ultimately kill them.
I can also speak to the ways in which politicizing this experience is a commitment to health and to life. It’s a refusal to be defined by these constructs, and a journey of healing that is taken not alone, but in community.
I have also stood on the other side, as the fixer. As a mother, daughter and social change actor, I have used a Western mindset to diagnose and treat problems to try and get rid of them. I have comforted myself with the belief that I have the solution.
I am drawn to the issue of pathology because it reveals how enmeshed we are in the dominant paradigm. Exploring pathology is an act of decolonizing, invariably pointing the way to transformation and seeing differently. It illuminates alternatives. Through exploring pathology, we may find more room to be.
When we begin to see the ways in which dominant systems have pathologized people, and the ways in which the change sector is complicit in that work, we gain insights into how we might move forward and shift the balance of power.
I am not broken. You are not broken. We are not broken. Care does not mean that the one cared for is broken or ill.
The result of this de-pathologized vision is room to breathe. My compassion grows. My connection to others grows too. The heart aligns. I am more human. And I see the human in you.
The roots of this pathologizing of the ‘other’ run deep in the history of Western culture.
Eugenics, colonization, patriarchy, witch hunts, philanthropy, charity, religion. Gurus, gods, devils and demons, mob mentality and fear of death.
All of these are in the soil on which we stand.
There is something soothing in the ways that our guests are naming these things, and bringing them into awareness. It calms our preconceptions about other people. It helps us find more stillness and love in how we care.
Thank you Nora and Bayo for your challenging the ways pathologising can be dressed up in good intentions.
Watch Session 2 with Nora Bateson here.
