How have "our" healing practices, which are erased from the dominant western medical narratives, been healing us from the brink of extinction?

“No matter how much we cry, if they don’t understand our pain - it’ll take us a long time to change anything” says migrants rights organiser Last Mafuba whilst speaking about how the current system’s design is not created to address marginalised folk’s suffering.

Last’s conception of pain as a language and care as a means of communicating sacredness is significant. In speaking of how some pain is historically misunderstood, categorised as meaningless or as the way things are, Last’s words encourage us to think about how this has historically resulted in marginalised people not receiving the care they need. Histories of white body supremacy that have sought to justify the way that some bodies are sacred and to be taken care of, and others simply as commodities with which to be extracted from to create profit. To be a commodity is to have extinction inscribed on your body and others that look like you through unsafe working conditions, unsafe housing or food poverty.  

I am reminded of Alexis Pauline Gumbs work in Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals. In it they write: “How can we be seen without being known, how can be known without being hunted”. It makes me think of how care and healing can be synonymous with being hunted under the current system. Bids for care and healing as marginalised folk can lead to life threatening moments where you're pathologised, policed and traumatised - pushed further into extinction by the  institutions that are meant to provide healing. 

Across history, marginalised communities who are at risk of being hunted have crafted systems of care outside the dominant system of provision. As community organiser Axmed Maxamed from Somali Queer Mutual Aid says, we’re each other's family, community healing is a means of communicating sacredness, interdependence and connection, that our lives are for living and intertwined. Sacredness is to be seen, to be understood and to be kin - for  your pain to be placed within a context, lineage and a history. Sacredness is a means of crying and your pain to be understood because it is inseparable from mine. It is a collective language of healing that is based in relationship and community - not from institutions that seek to separate us from one another. These healing practices are self-sustaining, interdependent and embedded in our communities in informal and relational ways. 

Our healing practices are intergenerational. I am reminded of Richwaters, a Black owned apothecary run by Maya who grows herbs passed down by grandmother's garden and lovingly creates healing salves and tinctures for struggling immune systems lovingly with her daughter, this lineage shares healing with Black activists. 

Our healing practices bring us together in community. Inini collective run food convenings where displaced people take turns to cook meals from their homeland, and share with other displaced folk the taste of home, stories of their home and connect. Or how collectives such as Peaks of Colour organise nature walks for  BPOC, creating space for folk to be in community with the natural world to marvel at all our plant family.  

Our healing practices provide safety through sharing and mutual aid. Such as the sharing of gender affirming medication or through mutual aid drives to access specialised therapy and support to access housing.