Dani and I will be investigating the general question: “How is wellness/health a class-inflected thing?”
We aim to investigate this question at the local level within the Bowdoin community, especially looking at students who come from FGLI backgrounds who may have had to navigate a new paradigm of health once arriving here. We plan to conduct short, no more than 15-minute interviews with students from groups such as Questrbidge, THRIVE, or affinity groups. Another thing we may ask is for students to maintain a food journal/short health diary that can provide further insight into how the ways in which Bowdoin defines health/wellness by raced/classed standards may not meet the realities of those outside these identifiers.
Question to consider/ask:
- Do you take care of yourself? What does taking care of yourself look like?
- How have you confronted health differently when coming to Bowdoin? (implying a classed understanding of health/healthiness)
- How do these approaches help us understand what we define as healthy?
- How do you navigate/what are your strategies for maintaining health here?
- What practices, if any, do you keep from home?
- Do you go to the gym?
- What is your thought process regarding food when in the dining hall?
- Does the way you approach health here differ from when at home?