How Infant Formula Companies “Captured” The Biomedical Field And “Colonized” Populations Worldwide: A Wayfinder Interview With Cecilia Tomori, PhD
In this Meet the Wayfinders’ Series interview, you will hear the history of how formula companies “captured” biomedical field and “colonized” populations worldwide from Cecilia Tomori, PhD, Director of Global Health and Community Health, Johns Hopkins University. The series was created at the invitation of La Leche League International in celebration of their 65th Anniversary Conference held October 15-18, 2021. The oral history collection was presented live in October 2021 to LLLI conference attendees. Recordings of the event in multiple languages were available until April 2022.
All of Kindred’s Meet the Wayfinders Series video presentations are available now on our YouTube channel. Watch the full two-hour overview of the Meet the Wayfinders Series, and the full playlist of th nine individual interviews, here.
Learn more about the Meet the Wayfinders’ Series here.
Read Dr. Tomori on Kindred here.
About the Meet the Wayfinders Series
The Meet the Wayfinders oral history collection of empowering, personal stories features video interviews with nine professionals, parents, and scientists who found ways around breastfeeding advocacy barriers, or just broke them! The series was created at the invitation of La Leche League International in celebration of their 65th Anniversary Conference held October 15-18, 2021. The series was presented live in October 2021 to conference attendees. Recordings of the event in multiple languages were available until April 2022.
The LLLI conference collection, presented here now, included a two hour-long overview video, where participants learn the five hallmarks of wayfinder advocacy and view highlights of the nine oral history interviews. Attendees also received a resource guide in PDF form to help find the many references discussed in the collection. The collection also includes the nine full interviews, ranging in 15-30 minutes each.
In Meet the Wayfinders, conference participants will discover reasons why cultural change is difficult and how the breastfeeding advocates featured in this oral history collection were successful in breaking, transforming, and maneuvering around barriers in:
- The formula company “captured” biomedical field and colonization of populations worldwide: Cecilia Tomori, PhD, Director of Global Health and Community Health, Johns Hopkins University
- The siloed-science of academia and research which doesn’t (can’t) support a whole child wellness model: Darcia Narvaez, PhD, Professor of Psychology Emerita, University of Notre Dame; Founder, The Evolved Nest Initiative
- Hospital and medical professional culture’s systemic racism, Kimarie Bugg, DNP, FNP-BC, MPH, FAAN, IBCLC, Founder, Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere, ROSE
- African-American and Indigenous peoples’ colonization created anti-breastfeeding bias, Kimarie Bugg, DNP, Founder, Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere, ROSE; Wesley Bugg, JD, Reaching Our Brothers Everywhere, ROBE; and Jasha Lyons Echo-Hawk, Indigenous Milk Medicine Week and Indigenous Milk Medicine Collective, Co-Founder
- Mainstream media cultural bias, Jamie Grumet, TIME magazine cover breastfeeding mother from May 2012
- Workplace and gender equity laws, Joan C. Williams, JD, Founder, Center for Worklife Law, University of California at Hastings
- Inclusion of fathers in breastfeeding and birth advocacy, Wesley Bugg, JD, Reaching Our Brothers Everywhere, ROBE
- Creating support for families, Patty Kornwolf, RN-C, a Kindred World Founding Director
- Performance Arts, using arts for internal and external barrier-breaking, Cathleen O’Malley, playwright, MilkDrunk
In this series, the viewer will discover the hallmarks of successful barrier-breaking shared by the wayfinders who answer three questions:
- When were they first exposed to breastfeeding?
- Were they surprised to discover barriers to breastfeeding, particularly in their field?
- And how have they overcome, transformed, or moved beyond these barriers?
Through their personal histories, the wayfinders reveal to us a holistic form of breastfeeding advocacy, a strategy that does not wait for external, cultural forces to change and support individual and collective wellness.
All of our presenters address the opportunities awaiting us in our post-pandemic world and how, with an understanding of the hallmarks of successful barrier-breaking, we, too, can answer the call to become a wayfinder, to introduce and integrate a new way forward right where we stand as individuals, and to joyfully gather to build a breastfeeding-friendly culture.
Read the full press release here.
