Tool For Empowerment Research Articles

Artificial Intelligence Solutions to Increase Medication Adherence in Patients With Non-communicable Diseases.

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are increasingly being used within healthcare for various purposes, including helping patients to adhere to drug regimens. The aim of this narrative review was to describe: (1) studies on AI tools that can be used to measure and increase medication adherence in patients with non-communicable diseases (NCDs); (2) the benefits of using AI for these purposes; (3) challenges of the use of AI in healthcare; and (4) priorities for future research. We discuss the current AI technologies, including mobile phone applications, reminder systems, tools for patient empowerment, instruments that can be used in integrated care, and machine learning. The use of AI may be key to understanding the complex interplay of factors that underly medication non-adherence in NCD patients. AI-assisted interventions aiming to improve communication between patients and physicians, monitor drug consumption, empower patients, and ultimately, increase adherence levels may lead to better clinical outcomes and increase the quality of life of NCD patients. However, the use of AI in healthcare is challenged by numerous factors; the characteristics of users can impact the effectiveness of an AI tool, which may lead to further inequalities in healthcare, and there may be concerns that it could depersonalize medicine. The success and widespread use of AI technologies will depend on data storage capacity, processing power, and other infrastructure capacities within healthcare systems. Research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of AI solutions in different patient groups and establish the barriers to widespread adoption, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to a rapid increase in the use and development of digital health technologies.

Community Mobilization in Micro Credit as a Tool of Women Empowerment

This article is about community mobilization in microcredit as a tool of women empowerment. It argues that women empowerment is a process and community mobilization is a tool for women empowerment process through micro-credit programs. This article is based on the views of selected key informants’ information through participant observation and a case study at Mahadevsthan Village in Dhading. Three local NGO managers and their three beneficiaries were conveniently selected for the sampling purpose. The main argument of the article shows that most of the females who received microcredit finally got socio-economic empowerment through acquiring access to capital, control over resources, self-esteem, confidence, decision-making power.

Health Literacy and Food Literacy for K-12 Schools in the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Food literacy, a sub-area of health literacy, is achieving attention in schools, academia, research, health care, businesses, and governments worldwide. Against the current COVID-19 pandemic backdrop, the relevance of food literacy's interconnected attributes such as nutritional knowledge, food skills, and food environment is gaining traction. Enhancing health and food literacy in the K-12 school environment are important empowerment tools with the potential to reduce health inequalities as vulnerable people are at risk of limited health literacy. We aim to clarify the meaning of food literacy and its relationship to health literacy and other factors influencing eating behavior. We offer a proposed conceptual model depicting connections between relevant theories and constructs in the field of health and nutrition. Concrete actions are offered that contemporary schools can take guided by the utility of the model. This visual can help guide schools' multidimensional health and food literacy efforts while considering the realities of the current COVID-19 pandemic context and beyond. This model will provide an overarching reference for schools to consider key constructs to support practice, research, policy, and intervention efforts to advance their health and food literacy agendas.

Mechanisms and processes involved in women's pathways into alcohol dependence and towards recovery: a qualitative meta-synthesis

Women's heavy drinking is often rooted in trauma and histories of abuse, while socio-cultural factors affect both the initiation of use as well as pathways to recovery. Research has largely focused on the epidemiology of alcohol use, and considerably fewer studies have examined the elements that facilitate recovery and the socio-cultural specificities that affect women's lives. To address this gap, we conducted a qualitative meta-synthesis in which we employed a holistic approach to exploring women's pathways into alcohol dependence and towards recovery. Twenty-three qualitative studies from 1998 to 2018 were identified from relevant databases and synthesized to delineate the mechanisms that led to dependence and how these affected recovery processes. Results highlight the complex interplay between adverse childhood experiences, sense of 'self', and wider dynamics of power. Alcohol was initially used as a corrective agent and as a tool of temporary empowerment, regulating structural and familial imbalances. However, drinking became progressively compulsive and overpowered every aspect of life. Initiation of recovery was often hindered by shame and stigma and facilitated by belonging to and being accepted by recovery groups and a revision of ‘the self' within wider social structures. Implications for treatment, policy, and practice are discussed.

Call for Papers: 30th Anniversary of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit

Environmental JusticeVol. 14, No. 3 Calls for PapersFree AccessCall for Papers: 30th Anniversary of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership SummitDeadline for Manuscript Submission: December 31, 2021Guest Editors: Peggy M. Shepard and Crystal Romeo UppermanGuest Editors: Peggy M. ShepardWE ACT for Environmental Justice, New York, New York, USASearch for more papers by this author and Crystal Romeo UppermanAclima, Inc., San Francisco, California, USASearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:16 Jun 2021https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2021.29007.cfpAboutSectionsPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail The 21st century environmental justice movement will look very different from its 20th century progenitor. Much has changed in the way our world communicates, mobilizes, and governs. This special issue of Environmental Justice will capture the history of environmental justice across the United States, showcasing how the movement has evolved. Moreover, the issue will chart a wireframe of the future of environmental justice in its domestic home of the United States and its international propagation globally.The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, in 1991, where the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice were developed and ratified, propelled the environmental justice movement beyond its antecedent focus to include issues of environmental/public health, worker safety, land use, transportation, housing, resource allocation, and community organizing, base building and enfranchisement. The convening also demonstrated the possibility of building a multiracial grassroots movement around environmental and economic justice, which led to the principles of environmental justice, regional and identity-based networks, academic careers and majors, impact on the EPA, state and city regulations, and advisory boards.This special issue will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. It will explore the following key questions: What is the history of the environmental justice movement from 1991 to 2020, and how has the movement evolved across the regions of the United States?What is the shared vision of environmental justice that can help create action toward curbing environmental externalities and climate impacts for highly burdened communities?Can the international adoption of the tenets of environmental justice advance and lessen the Global North and Global South divide in addressing climate change?What resources, tools, technologies, and new policies are essential to catalyze the environmental justice movement of the 21st century with the rapid adoption of renewable energy as a replacement for fossil fuels?What is the role of funders (foundations and government) and researchers within and adjacent to the environmental justice movement?All manuscripts should be submitted online by December 31, 2021. All submissions will be subject to a rigorous peer review. We are interested in original research, articles, editorials, policy briefs, legal analyses, reviews, history essays, perspectives, tools for education, empowerment and action, and methodology papers on these topics and others from diverse stakeholders representing all sectors (environmental justice organizations, academia, government, nonprofit, community, private sector, etc.).Topics may revisit the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice, discuss their application and propose new principles; discuss how they have been used, how to better actualize them, and how they can be integrated into the manner in which agencies and organizations operationalize environmental justice work.Suggested topic areas may also include, among others:Yesterday, today, and tomorrow: keys that led to the successes of the past and ways to elevate community engagement and mobilization for the future.The role of technology and geospatial tools in bolstering government decision-making toward the attainment of environmental parity.Environmental justice to locally led action: ways in which grassroots organizations in the Global South can move the needle on systemic issues tied to the vestiges of colonization.Building an environmental justice movement that is reflective of shared principles in a global society.Meaningful and authentic environmental justice engagement for sectors that have yet to engage or are looking to reverse historical aggression toward grassroots organizations.Regenerative environmental justice movements: leadership expansion and transition for successful intergenerational organizing.Science to support environmental justice: filling the gaps necessary to make the case for causality and support bold policy actions.Gaps in the law: how jurisprudence and hearty environmental regulation can continue to embrace a connection with environmental ethics and social justice.Visit Environmental Justice at https://home.liebertpub.com/publications/environmental-justice/259 to learn more, read past issues, and view author submission guidelines (https://home.liebertpub.com/publications/environmental-justice/259/for-authors).Queries to the editor to propose a topic prior to submission are encouraged. Please contact Peggy Shepard at peggy.m.shepard@gmail.com and Dr. Crystal Romeo Upperman at crystal.romeo@gmail.com to initiate your query or for any further details.Visit the Instructions for Authors:www.liebertpub.com/envSubmit your paper for peer review online:https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/envFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 14Issue 3Jun 2021 InformationCopyright 2021, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishersTo cite this article:Guest Editors: Peggy M. Shepard and Crystal Romeo Upperman.Call for Papers: 30th Anniversary of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit.Environmental Justice.Jun 2021.233-234.http://doi.org/10.1089/env.2021.29007.cfpPublished in Volume: 14 Issue 3: June 16, 2021PDF download

Interoperability Architecture of the ADLIFE Patient Empowerment Platform.

Chronic diseases introduce challenges for the patients to manage the changing requirements of the disease. Patient empowerment activities are a critical component to assist patients in their long-term care journey. In order to be effective, patient empowerment tools need to be well-integrated with the chronic disease management tools used at the clinical sites. This paper explores and analyzes the exploitation of HL7 FHIR to design and implement an interoperable patient empowerment platform that can be seamlessly integrated with external chronic disease management and Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems.

The Price of Anarchy in ROSCAS with Risk Averse Agents

Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (Roscas) are a widely documented informal financial organization that is often used in low-income communities with limited funding sources. Roscas have been shown to serve as a tool for economic empowerment and a way of mitigating adverse shocks to income for vulnerable communities. In this paper, I describe my contributions to a research project in which we study the allocative efficiency of different Rosca structures and formats in the presence of risk-averse agents.

Family-centered empowerment for perioperative stress and pain management – using novel design thinking approaches

Spine fusion (scoliosis) and Nuss procedure (pectus) are among the most painful surgeries healthy adolescents undergo. Pain experience depends on family interactions and preexisting psychosocial factors. Thus, focusing on perioperative pain protocols is not sufficient to optimize pain experience. We applied design thinking approaches in conjunction with Livewell Collaborative to design family-centered empowerment tools focused on personalized, interactive pain management solutions. The design thinking modality employed was based on Vogel and Cagan's 4-phase integrated new product development process. The project was conducted in 2 stages each over 24 weeks. Both stages consisted of design research (focus groups with all key stakeholders to define the problem and processes from a patient perspective and identify opportunities), concept ideation (benchmarking and co-creation of new solutions) and concept refinement phases. During 1st stage, we identified 5 opportunities (key drivers), positive and negative influencers of pain experiences and visual tools used to map anxiety peaks. Using a non-weighting matrix, current tools were evaluated, 4 parent-child engagement dynamic spectrums and solution themes identified – empowering, road map, clear/consistent communications, technology based AIM system and vision of Hero's journey. During the second stage, patient and parent personas were identified via thematic analyses. Existing stress management tools (sensorial, thinking, relaxation, activity) were evaluated, and an interactive tool kit was built (including binder, booklet, card set and interactive site) to empower patients and caregivers with the flexibility to find the right tools suiting their needs. Interactive tools/video were co-created with Generation Z's perspectives. Our findings are driving the implementation of solutions tailored to family units to address key periods of increased stress. Changes implemented/ready to test include preoperative psychologic screening within surgical workflows and addressing anxiety, an app for medication management, empowerment binder, booklet, card set and Hero's journey storyboarding using videos.

IMPACT OF TEACHERS’ BEHAVIOR ON THE MOTIVATION OF STUDENTS AT HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL: EMPIRICAL STUDY OF DISTRICT HYDERABAD, SINDH, PAKISTAN

Education is considered as an authentic tool for rapid nation building, empowerment, prosperity and economic development. The quality of education remained main issue for Policy makers and curriculum designer. Policy makers have dedicated huge amount of time and energy to provide quality education. Mainly focus of quality betterment relies was associated with infrastructural development like, buildings, furniture, laboratories, libraries and play grounds. In this relation, curriculum designing, hiring of new trained teacher, external environment, nutrition, poverty alleviation also remained priority for betterment of education. But the major element of education is related with student psychology. One major factor is being over shadowed; the motivation of the students, even with the best administrators, highly qualified faculty, curriculum and materials in place, if students are not motivated, to learn and excel, the achievement of goal will become difficult. Therefore, current study major purpose was to investigate the impact of teacher’s behavior on the motivation of students at high school. The study based on inductive approach. The quantitative technique was employed for data collection. The data were analyzed through statistical package for social science 24 version for windows. The findings of study revealed that impact of teacher’s behavior on the motivation of students is positively associated. The teacher motivation has great impact on student attitude, learning, understanding and mental development. Therefore, policy makers, curriculum designers should focus on motivation of students.
 
 <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0774/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Pemberdayaan Masyarakat Melalui Ekowisata pada Desa Pesisir di Kabupaten Bintan

Ecotourism activities and the community-based ecotourism model are not new in Bintan District. Some coastal villages such as the Village of Kuala Sempang through Ballond Mangrove Tour and the Village of Pengudang through Pengudang Bintan Mangrove are even able to promote the mangrove forest ecotourism activities managed by the local communities. The success in promoting tourism potential through the concept of ecotourism in these villages certainly brings the hope of empowerment to the communities. Some studies even emphasize that tourism with the concept of ecotourism and community-based ecotourism models can contribute positively and can be used as a means or tool for community empowerment, especially for economically marginalized local communities. However, so far, studies on tourism in Bintan District are more focused on aspects of managing ecotourism activities, evaluating the development of ecotourism, and studying the potential of mangroves, while studies on community empowerment through ecotourism activities are needed to be encouraged to provide understanding based on empirical evidence of the impact and benefits of ecotourism activities for community empowerment, especially in coastal villages. Therefore, this study aims to describe how ecotourism activities empower the communities in coastal villages in Bintan District.

An Overview Of Sukuk Issuance And Their Contribution In Economic Empowerment

As one of the most popular financial instruments under Islamic finance, Sukuk can easily create and ensure economic empowerment if properly mobilized and structured. That is what the Islamic finance theory has shown; Sukuk has a considerable ability to playing a notable role in curbing poverty and creating a proper environment for vulnerable populations, thus, enabling them to shift from being a social burden to a development booster. Sukuk offers viable alternative funding sources to deliver and provide critical infrastructures. Concretely, governments cannot fully fulfill their socio-economic role and create the appropriate necessary environment for economic activity. This situation implies, theoretically, that Sukuk can be used to fulfill governments‘ needs and supply the needed funds to create a good environment and a better livelihood. However, their use as an effective means of economic empowerment is still shyly expanding and widening. This paper studies to what extent does Sukuk issuance serve the objectives of Islamic finance and insures its empowering and financial equality and support goals, through a theoretical overview regarding the scope of their use as an economic empowerment tool and an overview of the multiple experiences of Southeast Asian countries (Malaysia and Indonesia) and international financial institutions in using Sukuk for this role. We will present an overview of actual international cases in which Sukuk has been successfully mobilized to accomplish economic empowerment. Then we will face the impact of these experiences on the effect in combing poverty and empowering vulnerable populations that are awaited from Sukuk issuances. Our study will be completed by an investigation of the various barriers and key challenges impeding and obstructing a larger issuance, capable of bringing more enhanced empowering effect and of setting Sukuk and Islamic finance in general in its natural position: leading the economy for better achievements and bettering the livelihoods of the population.

General Practice in the Time of COVID-19: A Mixed-Methods Service Evaluation of a Primary Care COVID-19 Service

Primary care coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) clinics were rapidly introduced across the UK to review potentially infectious patients. Evaluation of these services is needed to guide future implementation. This mixed-methods study evaluates patient demographics, clinical presentation, co-morbidities, service usage, and outcomes for the Islington COVID-19 service (London, UK) and from April to May 2020 and thematically analyses survey responses from 29 service clinicians and 41 GP referrers on their service experience. Of the 237 patients booked into the service, a significant number of referrals (n = 91; 38.6%) were made after the presumed infectious period of 14 days. Almost half of all adult referrals (49%) were dealt with remotely (via telephone/video consultation +/− remote oxygen saturation monitoring). The service was perceived to provide a safe way to see patients; it developed local expertise, learning, and empowerment; and it was a positive teamworking experience. These findings suggest that the management of many patients with COVID-19 symptoms is possible in routine general practice with minimal risk through the implementation of remote consultation methods and in patients who present after the post-infectious period. Additionally, the use of remote saturation monitoring and local GP COVID-19 “experts” can support practices to manage COVID-19 patients. Future primary care COVID-19 services should act as empowerment tools to assist GPs to safely manage their own patients and provide support for GPs in this process.

Cyber Violence against Women and Girls in Nepal

Violence against women and girls in the virtual space is the emerging concern in the global context. With the growth in use of technologies and the internet, cyberspace has been an equally vulnerable area for violence targeted against women and girls as that of public space. With the rise in numbers of existing forms of violence, conceptual clarification on the dynamics of cyber based violence is a major need of time. Moreover, it has been an issue of immediate concern to assess the current situation of Nepal for the identification of policy and legal remedies. The present study attempts to identify the pattern and forms of cyber based violence against women and girls in Nepal through the study of registered cases in Cyber Crime Unit of Nepal Police and also, reflect on the nature of cases adjudicated by the Kathmandu District Court. In the absence of a clear legal framework and technical knowhow of cyber based crimes, law enforcement authorities have been constantly facing challenges to critically intervene the process and secure safe spaces for women and girls in use of technology. The study concludes that a coherent approach from all concerned stakeholders is required in defining a clear legal and policy framework to ensure use of information and technology as a tool of gender empowerment, thus addressing the crimes committed through cyberspace.

‘A Neo-colonial Education’: Querying its Role in Immigrant Identity, Inclusion and Empowerment

ABSTRACT This article problematises the neo-colonial legacies of Westernised education in the experiences of empowerment, disempowerment and identity negotiations of two immigrant academic women often positioned as ‘elite’ transnationals in Australia. Through positioning theory and postcolonial theory as frameworks, critical autoethnography as a research method shapes our personal accounts within two postcolonial contexts (India and Mauritius). We explore the tensions and dualities of race, class, ethnicity and gender engendered through an anglicised education. Our empowerment manifests as privilege and access to knowledge and opportunities for transnational mobility. We unpack the gradual erosion of our cultural rootedness and a renegotiation of our migrant identities entailing both submissiveness and resistance. Situating education as a force in our lives, we query whether it is an ‘empowerment tool’ concomitantly creating and deleting elements of our cultural history OR reclaiming the paradoxes of privilege and ‘disempowerment’ shaped by a neo-colonial education?

Empowering Saudi women in higher educational institutions: Development and validation of a novel women empowerment scale.

The government in Saudi Arabia in 2016 declared the necessity to overcome the ancestral oil-based economy and move towards a more diversified model. One of the significant steps to achieve this goal is to empower Saudi women, who form half of the Saudi population, to actively contribute their much-needed talents and skills to the Saudi labour market. However, there is a scarcity of existing scales to measure women empowerment in Saudi Arabia. The objective of this study was to construct and validate a reliable novel scale for the empowerment of Saudi women employed in higher education institutions. A methodological study was conducted from January to April 2020 among Saudi women academic and administrative staff (n=160) working in the higher educational institutions located in the northwestern and southern regions of Saudi Arabia. The tool underwent content and face validity as well as factor analyses. Internal consistency was analyzed through Cronbach's alpha and Pearson correlation coefficient. The data analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS version 23. A Cronbach's alpha value of 0.94 was obtained in reliability analysis. The results showed that the total women empowerment scale had an exceptional internal consistency (>9). The three domains of the scale and total woman empowerment scale had a score close to 1, indicating a high Intraclass Correlation Coefficient, and showed a high similarity between values at the second and third measurements. Self-esteem and self-efficacy subscales were the most important indicators of women's' personal empowerment. Furthermore, a highly positive correlation (p <0.01) was found between the total domains of empowerment scale. A novel women empowerment tool was developed and validated in Saudi women working as academic and administrative staff. This can serve as a reliable tool to measure women's empowerment in higher education institutions. It will eventually enable the formulation of strategies that facilitate women's empowerment and pave the path for a strong foundation for the development of the country.

Ugly on the internet: from #authenticity to #selflove

This article aims at understanding why people deliberately share ugly photos of themselves on social media. After categorising the ugly pictures, the motivations for posting them are in focus: some people stress authenticity in times of ‘fake’ and a deeper understanding of social media, some refer to coolness, understood as the ‘apathy to cool’, or to a counter-culture, which applies different definitions of beauty and ugliness. Furthermore, there are people on social media using the ugly pictures as tools for empowerment and acceptance, as well as expressions of body-positivity and self-love. Finally, photography also has the power to transcend the body and its appearance when it no longer stands for an individual but is staged to express a concept.

Heritage and Tourism: Alternative Perspectives from South Asia

This paper examines the typical ways in which mass tourism has utilized cultural heritage as a salient asset for development. Tourism has long focused on extraordinary, exotic and grand heritage assets at the expense of ordinary, mundane elements the human past that are part of the everyday lives of ordinary people. The paper argues that there are numerous ways in which ordinary heritage should be researched better in South Asia, how it might be used as a tourism resource, and as a tool for community empowerment. The paper focuses on language, Indigenous minorities, religion, traditional livelihoods, and food as exemplars of ordinary heritage with significant potential for tourism and for heritage protection.

Multilingualism as a Tool of Marginalization or Empowerment in Pakistan: A Classroom Perspective

Pakistani educational system is dominated by multilingual phenomenon at all stages. The students with different levels of language proficiency enter university education where classrooms are dominated by multilingual phenomenon with the main adherence to English language. The major concerns of this study are: does multilingualism in Pakistani university classrooms transfer or inculcate any sense of marginalization or empowerment amongst the students at BS level; whether this sense of marginalization or empowerment can be related to their socioeconomic background and to their private and public schooling. The data were collected through a self-developed questionnaire from BS 3rd semester students enrolled in University of Sargodha. The questionnaire included close ended as well as open ended items which were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The results revealed that students with low socio-economic background and public schooling were on the verge of marginalization and demotion which have developed a sense of low confidence in them. Students from private sector English medium schools were more confident, interactive, and participative in the classroom, hence empowered. The study concluded with some suggestion that universities may organize a zero semester for students to teach them a deficiency course of communication skills in English.&#x0D; Keywords: Multilingualism, Marginalization. Empowerment, University students&#x0D;

Trust and Mistrust in Shaping Adaptation and De-Implementation in the Context of Changing Screening Guidelines.

To understand barriers and facilitators to the adaptation of programs reflecting changing scientific guidelines for breast/cervical cancer screening, including factors influencing the de-implementation of messaging, program components, or screening practices no longer recommended due to new scientific evidence. National sample of NWP sites from across the United States. We conducted a convergent mixed-methods design in partnership with The National Witness Project (NWP), a nationally implemented evidence-based lay health advisor (LHA) program for breast/cervical cancer screening among African American (AA) women. Surveys were conducted among 201 project directors (PDs) and LHAs representing 14 NWP sites; in-depth interviews were conducted among 14 PDs to provide context to findings. Survey data and qualitative interviews were collected concurrently from January 2019-January 2020. Trust and mistrust were important themes that arose in quantitative and qualitative data. Common concerns about adapting to new guidelines included: 1) perceptions that new guidelines misalign with the personal values and beliefs of AA women; 2) mistrust of guidelines, providers, medical organizations; 3) confusion about inconsistent guidelines and concern they are based on studies that don't reflect the experience of AA women (who experience more aggressive tumors at younger ages); and 4) belief that breast self-exam (BSE) is an empowerment tool for AA women and should be included to promote awareness, given many women discovered lumps/cancer through BSE. Findings highlight that trust and mistrust are important but understudied social determinants of health among AAs that should be considered in implementation science as they: 1) have critical implications for shaping health inequities; and 2) help explain and contextualize why new screening guidelines may not be fully embraced in the AA community.

Aesthetics of Excess: The Art and Politics of Black and Latina Embodiment

Aesthetics of Excess:The Art and Politics of Black and Latina Embodiment Carolyn Silva (bio) Jillian Hernandez's Aesthetics of Excess: The Art and Politics of Black and Latina Embodiment, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020 In the book Aesthetics of Excess, University of Florida professor Jillian Hernandez explores the racialized and gendered experiences of working-class Black and Latina women and girls as their bodies and aesthetics are assessed, represented, and marginalized by societal norms of cultural production. The book attempts to capture the duality between legitimized versus deviant forms of gendered Blackness and Latinidad manifested through the bodies and aesthetics of girls and women of color. Hernandez's book is also a cautionary tale against discourses of excess that racialize the gendered aesthetics of Black women and Latinas by using white Eurocentric values, discourses, and imagery as the norm and producing a false dichotomy between excess and modesty as proxies for savagery and intellectual superiority, respectively. Born out of community work, the book draws on Hernandez's work with the Miami group Women on the Rise! (WORT), a space where art and theory collide, converse, and are shaped by the lived experiences and perceptions of girls and women of color. Situated in Miami, a city historically entangled with the aesthetics of Blackness and Latinidad, the book also captures Hernandez's complicated relationship with her own identity. Indeed, the book is inspired by Hernandez's own experiences as a woman of color, and the contrast between her own understanding of her aesthetics as a working-class Latina and the overtly sexualized gaze society attributes to Black and Latina women's visual identity. In exposing her conflicted relationship with her own identity, Hernandez walks us through the aesthetics, discourses, and representations of excess often associated with working-class Latinas and personified by the label of chonga. In Hernandez's tale, the representation of the chonga in popular culture allows us to understand [End Page 423] the politics of class and gendered aesthetics that racialize girls and women of color through the sexual aesthetics of excess. As Hernandez explains, the aesthetics of excess refers to the "creative, diasporic, iconographies and practices of bodily styling, art-making, and cultural production" (10) enacted by Black and Latina girls and women. Transgressive in nature, the aesthetics of excess capture women of color's attempts to engage in bodily representation to challenge hegemonic perceptions of gender, race, and sexual normativity that insist on perceiving excess "as a negative, a social liability, or deviancy" (11). Conversely, Hernandez chooses to read excess as a tool of empowerment and a form of cultural production utilized by women and girls of color to complicate notions of cultural and hierarchical perceptions of cultural productions that ultimately illustrate the "interplay between the sexual, racial, class, and gender discourses circulating in media" (9). Indeed, as Hernandez notes, women of color across the African diaspora have utilized and strategically positioned their bodies as canvases of representation that speak to issues of "race, gender, class, and sexuality for Black and Latina women and girls as they make art with and about their bodies" (7). Yet, as Hernandez notes, the cultural recognition of deviant modes of Latinidad embodied by the exaggerated aesthetics of girls and women of color came accompanied by a societal assessment that further racialized and marginalized Black and Latina bodies within and outside academic spaces, a trend exemplified by the polarized reactions to Cardi B, an AfroLatina, and her sexually charged music video "WAP," featuring Megan Thee Stallion. Policed by academia and society alike, the excess often carries the historical marks of "diasporic creative, cultural, and spiritual lineages that predate European colonization" (11) while troubling ideas of race formation, gender, and sexuality that continue to oppress women of color. Viewed in this light, excess becomes a creative practice embodied and enacted by women of color that "trouble sexual policing and reveal class disparity" (17). After all, as Hernandez suggests, by showing up as themselves in dehumanizing spaces, women of color have utilized excess as an agentic tool to subvert racialized sociocultural boundaries, legitimate their personhood, and agitated normative discourses. [End Page 424] Carolyn Silva Carolyn Silva is a PhD candidate in the...