Dana-Ain Davis is Professor of
Urban Studies and Anthropology at the City University of New York
(CUNY). She is the director of the Center for the Study of Women and
Society at the Graduate Center. Davis’s work covers two broad domains:
Black feminist ethnography and the dynamics of race and racism.With
regard to the latter, she has examined the ways race and racism animate
neoliberalism and reproduction.
In the last decade, Davis has
focused her attention on reproduction, race, and technologies that
assist in reproduction. She has written several articles addressing
issues of reproduction and racism including, “Obstetric Racism: The
Racial Politics of Pregnancy, Labor, and Birthing,” (2019); “Trump,
Race, and Reproduction in the Afterlife of Slavery” (2019); “Feminist
Politics, Racialized Imagery, and Social Control: Reproductive Injustice
in the Age of Obama” with Beth E. Richie and LaTosha Traylor (2017);
“The Bone Collectors” (2016); and, “The Politics of Reproduction: The
Troubling Case of Nadya Suleman” (2009).
She is the author of Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth (NYU Press 2019). The book received the Eileen Basker Memorial Prize from the Society for Medical Anthropology; The Senior Book Prize from the Association of Feminist Anthropology. In addition, Reproductive Injustice was named a Finalist for the 2020 PROSE Award in the Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology category, given by the Association of American Publisher and received an Honorable mention by The Victor Turner Ethnographic Writing Award Committee of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology.
Davis is also a doula and co-founded the Art of Childbirth with doula/midwife Nubia Earth-Martin, offering free birth education workshops that incorporate artistic expressions in Yonkers, New York.
