Book Talk | Decolonial Care: Reimagining Caregiving in the French Caribbean

Join the Gender+ Justice Initiative,Women’s and Gender Studies Program,Department of Black Studies,Department of French and Francophone Studies,Global Health Institute,Berkley School of Nursing, and Medical Humanities Initiative at Georgetown University for a book talk with Prof. Jennifer Boum Make discussing her latest book . This talk will be moderated by Prof. Lauren Arrington, Assistant Professor and Susan H. Mayer Endowed Professor in Health Equity at Berkley School of Nursing, Georgetown University.

Decolonial Care examines the relationship between the legacies of colonialism and the dynamics of caregiving that have emerged from the French Caribbean. Through a variety of media, including novels, graphic narratives, and curatorial discourse, this book explores four key contexts at the intersection of care and colonialism: care-focused gender roles, domestic service, nurturing human life and environments, and curation as caring. Decolonial Care argues that to imagine caregiving in the context of the French Caribbean means reckoning with intrinsically uncaring practices inherited from colonial rule that show disregard for human life and environments. Putting in dialogue postcolonial studies and care studies, this book elucidates how caring and uncaring have been historically shaped by colonialism, showing how media and narratives about the French Caribbean document the damaging impact of colonialism but also help develop decolonial approaches to care that sustain human life and livable environments.

About the Author:

Dr. Jennifer Boum Make is primarily a literary and visual studies scholar and Assistant Professor in the Department of French & Francophone Studies at Georgetown University. She is also affiliated with the Medical Humanities Initiative and the African Studies Program at Georgetown. She received her Ph.D. in 2019 from the University of Pittsburgh.

Her research is focused on the French Caribbean, the legacy of colonialism and the French Atlantic slave trade, and care studies. Her monograph, Decolonial Care: Reimagining Caregiving in the French Caribbean (Rutgers University Press, 2025), examines the relationship between colonial legacies and caregiving dynamics in the French Caribbean, offering a decolonial perspective on care practices.

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