Podcast: Untellable Stories, Reproductive Justice & Complicating Acts of Advocacy (With Shui-yin Sharon Yam)

This is a conversation with Shui-yin Sharon Yam (her 2nd time on the podcast) largely around a paper that she wrote called “Complicating Acts of Advocacy: Tactics in the Birthing Room“. This is episode 95 of The Fire These Times podcast.

She is Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies, and a faculty affiliate of Gender and Women’s Studies and the Center for Equality and Social Justice at the University of Kentucky. She is one of the series editors for the Ohio State University Press’s New Directions in Rhetoric and Materiality.

Topics Discussed:

Rhetorical Analysis, Reproductive Justice and Doulas: Intro to each and the links between them
Three pillars of Reproductive Freedom and global implications
Rhetoric of Health and Medicine: intro and explanation
Technocratic model of birth: intro and explanation
What makes some stories ‘untellable’?
The pitfalls of the ‘self-made moms’ rhetoric
Rhetoric and the antivaxx movement

Resources Mentioned:

Romper’s Doula Diaries on YouTube
“Rhetorical Appeals and Tactics in New York Times Comments About Vaccines: Qualitative Analysis”https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33275110/
“Using Rhetorical Situations to Examine and Improve Vaccination Communication” https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.697383/full#h4
Vaccine Rhetorics https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814214336.html

Recommended Books:

If you like what I do, please consider supporting this project with only 5$ a month (or 50 a year) on Patreon or on BuyMeACoffee.com. You can also do so directly on PayPal if you prefer.

Patreon is for monthly/yearly, PayPal is for one-offs and BuyMeACoffee has both options.

You can follow on Twitter or Instagram @ firethesetimes too.

If you can’t donate anything, you can still support this project by sharing with your friends and leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts!