November Salon - Chioma Nnaji
November 9, 2022
Salon Topic:
Things Intersectionality Researchers Keep Getting Wrong about Intersectionality: Why We Need Communities, Not Researchers, to Lead the Way to Social Justice and Health Equity

Salon Guests:
Chioma Nnaji, MPH, MEd
Multicultural AIDS Coalition (MAC), Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, and United We Rise
Salon Description:
Patricia Hill Collins, in her excellent 2015 Annual Review of Sociology article “Intersectionality’s Definitional Dilemmas” (a must read!), highlights how practitioners such as community activists, teachers, and social workers, on the front lines of social justice work often rely on intersectionality as a tool for critical praxis, even if they don’t use the word, intersectionality. Academic researchers, by contrast, increasingly use the word intersectionality a lot, but often underemphasize intersectionality as critical praxis. Instead many academic researchers tend to focus on intersectionality almost exclusively as a descriptive or analytic lens for research. This month’s guest, Chioma Nnaji, MPH, MEd, a community organizer and Program Director at the Multicultural AIDS Coalition in Boston, MA, joins us to engage us in a conversation us about all of the things intersectionality researchers keep getting wrong about how we approach communities. Ms. Nnaji knows this territory well. Her work involves organizing communities of color to address root causes of the HIV epidemic, and advocating for community-led (versus just community “engaged” or “participatory”) research developed “for, by and with” communities most affected by intersectional structural oppression. We are excited to have Ms. Nnaji joins us for what will no doubt be a lively and provocative conversation. She’ll share with us what she’s learned from her work as an intersectionality practitioner and community organizer about all of the things well-meaning intersectionality researchers get wrong when they say that they’re doing research with or for intersectionally “marginalized” communities.
Guest Bio:
Chioma Nnaji is the Program Director at the Multicultural AIDS Coalition (MAC) in Boston. She organizes communities of color to address root causes underlying the epidemic; develops programs and interventions for people living with and impacted by HIV/AIDS; advocates for policy changes; applies anti-racist and cultural competency frameworks to training public health and clinical professionals; and establishes community-academic research projects that are ‘for, by and with’ the people most impacted by inequities. She developed and currently manages the Africans For Improved Access (AFIA) Program – an HIV prevention and screening program targeting African immigrants and refugees in Massachusetts. AFIA is known nationally for developing culturally appropriate interventions, community mobilization strategies, and advocacy platforms. She also serves on the Board of Akwaaba Health Clinic – a free health clinic in Worcester, MA – and the Nigerian American Multi-Service Association (NAMSA).
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