Storying Black life – Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research

The Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research (CQ) at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health will host its CQ Public Seminar with Tola Mbulaheni on Oct. 23.

This hybrid event welcomes participants to join in person or online. Light refreshments will be served for those attending in person.

Topic: Storying Black life: A critical race narrative methodology for social research on health and well-being

Narrative approaches to critical inquiry are a powerful tool for examining health and health inequalities. However, there remains a gap in their critical engagement with race and racism, particularly in public health research. This presentation introduces a critical race narrative methodology as a multi-phase approach for conducting critical, reflexive narrative inquiry of race, racism and health. Grounded in critical race theory, the presentation discusses the methodology’s epistemological commitments and phases, illustrated through research on structural racism and Black women’s HIV service access in Toronto. It concludes with reflection on methodological tensions for advancing race consciousness in narrative inquiry.

Dr. Tola Mbulaheni is a public health researcher and critical race theorist whose work examines how racism, institutions, and policy shape health systems, access to care, and health outcomes.