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  1. Healing Histories Project
    1. Reviewed by: Zelda Montes
    2. Review start: February 11, 2024
    3. Review last updated: February 21, 2024
    4. Site Links:
    5. Archive Link: https://archive.ph/5o8u2
    6. Data Sources
    7. Processes
    8. Presentation
    9. Digital Tools Used
    10. Languages
    11. Review

Healing Histories Project

Reviewed by: Zelda Montes

Review start: February 11, 2024

Review last updated: February 21, 2024

Site Links:

  • https://healinghistoriesproject.com/
  • https://mictimeline.com/
  • https://fortification.libsyn.com/

Archive Link: https://archive.ph/5o8u2


Data Sources

  • Blog posts
  • Podcasts
  • Pedagogical questions
  • Curated stories
  • Timelines
  • Images
  • Articles

Processes

  • Blog posts reflect a dated history of work on the HHP
  • Pedagogical questions, framed as “Curriculum and Tools,” ask users to reflect critically on the research collected
  • Podcasts are embedded under “Fortification COVID-19 Edition” as a potential entry point for users to engage with; the embeds link to Apple Podcasts which subsequently link to Libsyn
  • A main timeline contains all the research collected regarding the Medical Industrial Complex, which is tagged in order to filter the timeline by topic
  • Articles are linked as sources within the timelines
  • Select curated stories of the Medical Industrial Complex accompany their respective curated timelines
  • Images supplement the curated stories

Presentation

The landing page of the Healing Histories Project is a searchable Wordpress site featuring multiple pages, with the bulk of content on the Blog and Curriculum & Tools pages. Overall, the site serves as a contextual entry point for the Timeline, which exists at a separate site altogether. After being directed to the timeline from the navigation bar, users are welcomed by a pop-up window soliciting contact information to “stay in touch.” The Stories of Care and Control: A Timeline of the Medical Industrial Complex website situates curated narrative stories alongside their respective timelines, as well as a main all-encompassing timeline. Upon entering the site, users are encouraged to explore the timeline, with a page linked containing information about how to use the timeline. The timeline is interactive, filterable, and keyword searchable. User engagement with the timeline surfaces a yearly date, overview, description, filters, and sources, as well as an ability to share the timeline event via email, X/Twitter, or Facebook. Interacting with the curated stories yields another pop-up window for the user to decide whether they want to read the narrative essay written, or interact with the curated timeline. A navigation bar links to pages both within the website where the timeline lives, as well as back to the Healing Histories Project website.

Digital Tools Used

  • WordPress
  • Svelte
  • Timeline and database technologies are unknown

Languages

  • English

Review

The Healing Histories Project (HHP) is a pedagogical framework website (healinghistoriesproject.com) founded by Anjali Taneja, Cara Page, and Susan Raffo, organizers and medical practitioners committed to the principles of Health Justice and Abolition working to “generate change through research, action and building collaborative strategies & stories with BIPOC-led communities, institutions and movements organizing for dignified collective care” (What is HHP?). The Stories of Care and Control: A Timeline of the Medical Industrial Complex sub-site (mictimeline.com) serves as a culmination of over a decade of research on the changing evolution of the Medical Industrial Complex (MIC) that resulted from the 2010 US Social Forum, further shaped in partnership with the Kindred Healing Justice Collective, the People’s Movement Assembly, and interdisciplinary contributors “rooted in abolition” (About | Our Team). As a digital remembrance project rooted in a “theory of change,” the timeline focuses on the following themes for contextualizing the impact of the Medical Industrial Complex on land, economies, bodies, and cultures:

  • The Before
  • Separation of Care from Community
  • Colonization, Eugenics, and the Evolution of Disease and Medicine
  • The Carceral State
  • Strategies of Movements and Resistance
At an overview, the HHP site consists of blog posts, curriculum & tools (including podcasts), and serves as an introduction to the accompanying research-driven MIC timeline. The timeline site broadly weaves together research ranging from 300,000 BCE to 2023 focusing on filterable topics covering the history of science, environmentalism, race, policy, law, war, drugs, religion, pharmacy, technology, labor, immigration, and a multitude of social movements. The use of filters for the MIC timeline are critical for navigating such an expansive timeline. Furthermore, curated stories and timelines of the MIC offer various helpful focal points for people to delve deeper into the research. As of writing this review, the following six stories are featured on the site:
  • The Story of the Colonizer Wound (pre-1700)
  • The Story of Sugar (1500 BCE to 2014)
  • The Story of Tuberculosis (late 1800’s to 1940’s)
  • The Story of Marine Health (1798 to 1944)
  • The Story of Disability Justice (1600s to 2021)
  • The Story of COVID-19 (2021 to 2023; monthly dated)
A critical component of the MIC timeline website is the Purpose and About pages, which serve as foundational context-setting for the interdisciplinary research goals of the project. The project is able to powerfully create a narrative of the Medical Industrial Complex by focusing on the experiences of systemic medical oppression against marginalized communities throughout human history that stand in opposition to the sterilized, detached, and scientific manner in which the history of medicine is typically presented. With regards to reaching potential audiences in building and fortifying communities committed to care-led medical strategies, I believe a potential expansion of this project's research could incorporate a more grass-roots component of community-submitted stories juxtaposing the often overlooked manifestations of the Medical Industrial Complex in the present day.

As a user, I found myself easily able to navigate the site, though confused as to why the MIC timeline exists on a separate site as the HHP site. While I understood that these projects were connected, integrating these user journeys would certainly help users in exploration of both of these sites. Beyond user experience, it was difficult to determine where the research came from and how it could be accessed – easier access to the research data could be transformative in facilitating contribution to and extensions of the project. However, questions regarding research are on the minds of the HHP contributors, as they hinted at future work to include a new page for sharing information about their “collaborative methodology and process” (About | Our Team). Besides research access, I observed cited sources were only present in the timeline itself and not in the curated narrative stories.

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