Mapping embodied experiences of care by Doulas and Home Visitors

This project is a collaboration with the GREAT Start program (Home Visiting and Doula support) at the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District. The Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute IHSI funded the work of Maya Westbrook as a Research Assistant for this project.

The project explores and documents the embodied experiences of Home Visitors and Doulas through individual and participatory body maps. To this end, we deployed a range of sensitive pedagogies (those that actively use the body, invite emotions, sensations, and work with the senses) to prioritize embodied experiences in support of aesthetic explorations.

Through the series of participatory mapping sessions, we gained a deep and insightful analysis of the bodily experiences of Home Visitors and Doulas. We complemented individual maps with a contextual perspective, exploring how bodies move across spaces, domestic contexts and institutional settings. By incorporating an element of physical space, we explored how they are socially situated, including how they perceive power, privilege and positionality across multiple spaces, and how they negotiate institutional and ancestral forms of knowledge.

As part of a holistic understanding of participatory research, we also held conversations about well-being, and co-created meanings about health and wellness. We also provided participants with opportunities to experiment with care practices that they can incorporate within their routines and with the families they work with. These ranged from meditations, the use of evocative images, to acupressure and ear acupuncture.

Multiple products from this research are relevant to different audiences, including the Body map poster (see below), a short documentary video (find it here), a project report (below) and more. The final infographic that documents the project will be permanently exhibited in the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, and has also been circulated across many families in the local area that work with Home Visitors and Doulas. The method of Participatory body mapping is also being extended as a support tool for caregivers and the helping professions.

These materials serve as tools for advocacy, breaking the silence about the work of Home Visitors and Doulas in our society and celebrating their essential contributions.