and now some nourishment

I believe very firmly in balancing the microcosm with the macrocosm, in calling out support to good people doing good work just as much as standing up against injustice. And that means backing up people who're building a better world and coming at it from new angles.

Amapola is doing work I've never seen before that I think is vital, and is now blogging about it at Imperfect Patient Syndrome. She's a queer femme of color who's been through the treatment system for anorexia and is now examining it from the outside, as an academic, with cutting insight. Her research is digging into ways that data on eating disorder patients--and the methods of treatment applied to them--leave out the narratives and concerns of working-class women, queer women, and women of color. It pulls open how privileging a "model" eating-disorder patient who is middle-to-upper-class, straight, and white, as has been standard in both theory and practice, not only neglects the voices of those outside that paradigm; it also harms their ability to get proper medical care. Amapola also works in her own personal narrative, bringing it all home to people you love and know and avoiding the sterility of a lot of academic work.

It's sharp analysis that keeps alternately making my jaw drop and making me wonder why there's so little material working with this perspective. This is an area of research with too few people working on it, and longtime readers here will know they're issues close to my heart. I think Amapola's work is, one of these days, going to save lives.

Imperfect Patient Syndrome. Go check it out.