Kinder is currently researching geographies of gender, health, and healing. The integration of health geography into urban planning presents compelling opportunities for city builders and policymakers to become champions of public health. However, although attending to structural factors could advance social justice, the planning profession’s growing interest in health geography coincides with the rise of neoliberal policy reforms that transfer responsibility for health and safety from governments and societies to individuals and households. These shifts could undermine the capacity for planners to advance health equity and gender justice, including as it relates to the public health crisis of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). Based on the personal stories of dozens of IPV survivors, this research resists these trends by tracing a systemic geography of activism, violence, and resilience that demands political attention. This project also sheds light on the healing potential of storytelling, as well as the way narratives of healing and recovery shape the geographical imagination.

Image created by DALL-E 3.