Recommended by: Shubhra Gaur

Summary: Throughout history women have struggled to reclaim their bodies from the meanings and assaults imposed on them by cultural practices, sexual mores, victimization, and concepts of how their bodies should be presented and managed in public, to intimate male partners, or in the workplace. Despite the images and expectations imposed on their bodies, women are increasingly claiming their bodies as their own through embodied somatic leadership, in protesting injustice, in promoting peace, and in working in a so-called “man’s world.” Why has embodied somatic leadership more recently become highlighted, and what conditions in the world have brought this approach to leadership under study and scrutiny?

Women Embodied Leaders answers these questions, analyzing models of embodied somatic leadership, and how women use this leadership from a number of perspectives. The wholistic treatment of this leadership is a useful tool not only for researchers, practitioners, and activists, but also for educators in the fields of leadership and social justice.

Contents:

Part I: Embodied Somatic Leadership: Models/Praxis

Chapter 1 Embodied Somatic Leadership as Practiced in the Time of the Butterflies – Sydney D. Richardson

Chapter 2 The Embodiment of Agency: Women Leaders in
Authoritarian, Patriarchal, and Religious Societies – Elizabeth Stork

Chapter 3 Hope and Communityship: Women’s Ways of Engaging in Embodied Somatic Leadership – Kem Gambrell and Terri Stewart

Part II: The Indigenous Way of Embodied Leading and Protesting

Chapter 4 All Our Relations: Indigenous Women’s Holistically Embodied and Relational Leadership in Canadian Universities – Candace Brunette-Debassige

Chapter 5 Indigenous Women Warriors: The Embodiment of Place – Kem Gambrell and Salena Beaumont Hill

Chapter 6 Antiracism in Aotearoa New Zealand: Perspectives of a Māori Woman and a Pākehā Woman on Maintaining Mana – Heather Came and Moahuia Goza

Part III: Embodied Protests

Chapter 7 Women’s Counteroffensive to Violence and Injustice in Nigeria’s Political Landscape: The Impact of Naked Protests – Salome Irimekyen Samuel

Chapter 8 Hijab, Habitus, Hysteresis: Unveiling Iranian Women’s Embodied Leadership – Elham Salehi, Keyhan Shams and Trisha Gott

Chapter 9 The Women of Srebrenica: Planting the Seeds of Hope and Love in Bosnia’s Charred and Blood-Soaked Terrain – Mira Ibrišimović

Chapter 10 Global Followers’ Identities Within a Global Social Movement: Exploring the Lived Experiences of Global Followers Within the Women’s March – Tobey J. Zimber

Part IV: Performativity: Embodied Protests Through the Arts

Chapter 11 My Body, My Voice: Women and the Art of Protest – Darin Jones and Crystina Wyler

Chapter 12 Reflections on the Madre Diaries: A Fiction-Based Autobiography of Mourning and Resistance – Kevin D. Collins

Chapter 13 Performing Leadership for Radical Change: Women’s Embodied Activism Through Theater – Victoria Pagan and Sara Zaeemdar

Part V: Reclaiming Our Bodies

Chapter 14 Body Matters: Arts-Based, Embodied Leadership Development for Resisting Violence and Injustice – Kathryn Mansfield and Katia Ornelas

Chapter 15 EARTH: Empowering All Relatives to Heal – Noshene Ranjbar, Andreana Elise Lefton, Alta Piechowski-Begay and Rica Wilson

Chapter 16 Our Bodies, Ourselves – Barbara Kellerman