Body and Territory: An Abortion Justice Fellowship

EXAMINING THE BODY AND TERRITORY IN ITS INTERWEAVING CONNECTIONS TO THE PATHWAY TOWARDS ABORTION JUSTICE

Context

Our struggle for human rights in the form of abortion rights, access, and justice connects us deeply to all struggles for justice across the world. The body as territory, territory as a place of contest and struggle, and the contest and struggle of ownership, belonging, and environment tie us continually to the intricately woven and interconnected struggles of systematically marginalized communities and the realities we experience, live, and challenge.

“Our body is our primary territory.” This vision emerged and grew from indigenous and global south feminist movements – acknowledging all of these visionaries as we embark on this fellowship.

Bodies and territories are found in urban metropolises, domestic suburbs, rural villages, across and beyond state lines and stolen land, in the spaces where we grapple with how to bridge the gaps that seek to separate us and reclaim what is our own.

Bodies and territories exist in citizens and refugees, in those documented and not, in nation-states and hospitals and prisons, in spaces where belonging becomes a site of control and dictate, rather than upheld as a right and space of respite.

Bodies and territories are immersed in a climate crisis that bears the scars of colonial wounds, in a world that sets them aflame over and over again, amidst communities who seek to pour cool healing over the beating heart of land leadership and knowledge.

Even when abortion is legalized - shame, silence, and stigma as tools of social policing continue over bodies. Bodies are seen as territory of the state or church and not the pregnant person themselves. Laws are framed with conditional and circumstantial clauses that dictate how people may live within their own bodies. For immigrants and refugees, poor, race and caste-marginalized, queer, incarcerated and indigenous peoples and more, access to abortion is stacked with layers of abortion stigma and fear of criminalization from the very start. Through systems of supremacy, such as the prison and medical industrial complexes, just to name a few, we see and live through how our bodies and territories have historically been and continue to be sites of violence, extraction, control, and stigma.

And yet, nourished with a sense of autonomy, just resistance, and collective care, we can build new systems which are interconnected and interdependent, as people and communities. When we come together in care, we create paths for liberation that hold the power to deepen processes of collective healing, sovereignty, and justice for all.

The first inroads Body and Territory: Abortion Justice fellowship

The Body and Territory: An Abortion Justice Fellowship by inroads will be an exploratory, three-month collective learning, exploration, and co-creation process that aims to gather 10 inroads members as fellows working at the forefront of abortion justice as it relates to body, territory, ownership, and autonomy.

inroads fellowships are a collective process that brings members together around a unique abortion stigma-busting theme. The purpose of our fellowships is to be a space of mutual learning, creativity, and joy that begins from a space of questions rather than pre-decided notions and encourages exploration rather than predetermined expertise on the topic area. The vision is that fellowships inspire and support members to engage in intersectional stigma-busting and cross-movement conversations & initiatives

Through this fellowship, we aim to produce an anthology exploring the connection of abortion, body, and territory, compiled and curated from the individual projects and creations of the fellowship cohort.

Examples of what fellows might create through this fellowship

• A personal essay reflecting on the politics in bodies and territory
• Illustrations
• Poetry and song lyrics
• Digital multimedia projects
• Journal entries built from the fellowship workbook
• Creative/political exercises in working with the body and territory

Who can apply

• Individuals who are inroads members as of 2 May 2023.
• inroads members who are engaged in the work of abortion justice as it relates to body and territory through personal, sociopolitical, institutional, community resistance, and more, with questions and ideas ready to delve into in a communal fellowship setting.
• inroads members who are ready to be engaged in their desire to explore the questions which can be asked about the places we occupy now – what can be moved? What can be radically shifted? Tying into the experiences and wisdom they bring.

Some of the areas of intersectional abortion stigma that inroads has been diving deeper into include: Abortion and reproductive justice for all, queer abortions, disability justice, and abortions, de-medicalization and social decriminalization of abortion. We imagine that some parts of the fellowship might address these issues and their convergences.

Expectations

• Each fellow will engage with the videos, reading materials, and/or resources shared in the Fellowship group in the inroads Circle Space and respond to small collective creative prompts 3 times throughout the fellowship. (3 hours total)
• Fellows will attend all 3 co-learning sessions organized with a Body and Territory lens, led by other inroads member resource people. (4.5 hours total)
• Fellows will work on their individual stigma-busting project with a shareable outcome for the collective fellowship anthology. (10 hours total)
• Fellows will engage in a mutual sharing process of projects & evaluation of fellowship (2.5 hours total)
• Total: 20 hours of commitment over 3.5 months.

What support will fellows receive?

• Every inroads fellow will receive an honorarium of 1000 USD to support their participation in the fellowship, especially if they cannot be compensated for this work in other ways. In cases where you are able to participate in this fellowship as a part of fairly compensated work, fellows can choose to waive the compensation, allowing us to expand the fellowship experience for more invited fellows.

Timeline

• Applications for the Body and Territory fellowship will open from 12 to 2 May 2023 GMT.
• Selected fellows will be informed by mid-May, and the fellowship will commence in the last week of May.
• The Fellowship will run from May to September 2023.