Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Creating Health From Below? Exposing And Resisting The Power Of Media Culture Over Public Health, Woods Nash

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

A few days ago, my three-year-old daughter happened to glimpse a picture of a glowing young woman in blue gown and long white gloves. It was Cinderella, all dressed up for the ball. And though my daughter didn’t know the woman’s name—has never read the story or seen the Disney movie—she pointed and pleaded, “Can I dress up like her?” What silliness, I thought, as we left home for the playground. But not before I grabbed my mesh back hat, making sure its bill was still bent just as retired tennis star Andy Roddick would don it.

Do we …

Polishing Treadmills At Midnight: Is Refugee Integration An Elusive Goal?, Woods Nash

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

It is often said that justice requires us to treat like cases alike. Accordingly, the U.S. refugee resettlement program provides all refugees—no matter where they are from, no matter their pasts—with very similar funding and services. Refugees, however, are far from alike. In this essay, I invoke Borgmann’s distinction between a “thing” and a “device” and draw on stories from my work with a resettlement agency to argue that our current, employment-driven system is in need of reform. Instead of being restricted to generic programs, refugee resettlement agencies should be funded to help each family achieve social integration in ways …