Dr. Sapana Doshi is a professor at the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona. She teaches and researches about the oppressive social, cultural, and political systems of global capitalism and the possibilities for liberatory social transformation. Dr. Doshi is a daughter of immigrants from India, She grew up feeling like an outsider, never really fitting into any single culture, social group or gender role. Conversely she also feels most “at home” at the borders of different cultures, languages, identities, desires and modes of being. She’s lived and worked in India, Brazil, the US, Nepal and speaks many languages. She is married to another woman of color of immigrant descent who she has been practicing and growing in love with for 15 years.
In this episode Dr. Sapana Doshi talks about how if there are fascist capitalist forces in the world, there are also mini-fascist regimes within our own mind and bodies that work to oppress the self and others at every moment, throughout the smallest cells of our body.
Dr. Doshi shares how she sets herself and her classroom up to discuss these deep and difficult topics. She shares how she is able to talk about white supremacy, global capitalism, and imperialism without collapsing under the weight of them. She shares her embodiment practices and encourages us to use our unique skills and focus on what’s directly in front of us. It's liberating and inspiring how simply her existence in the institution of marriage as a queer woman of color is transforming it, how the marriage process for her and her partner was a way for her to assert ALL of herself to her community and family while renegotiating what partnership and family mean to her. In her sharing about how heterosexism and patriarchy oppress her, we are able to recognize ways in which we are oppressed by it as well. And her recent experience in achieving tenure was a glimpse into an elite privileged academic group and process most don’t get access to or experience.
Music from bensound.com
