I'm a qualitative researcher who studies community literacies, rhetorics of health, and reproductive justice with promotores de salud (health promoters) who work with reproductive and sexual health education in Latinx communities. During the 2020-2021 academic year, I'll be in residency at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin to advance this research as a Mellon/ACLS Scholars and Society Fellow with their community education department and the promotores de salud program.
My past scholarship examined how interpreters and health providers communicate across differences in the "translation spaces" of their daily work, and how their perceptions of "good" and "bad" language impact the ways they communicate with patients. That research focused on an ethnographic project with a summer health program in the Dominican Republic and focus groups with interpreters in the U.S.
My past scholarship examined how interpreters and health providers communicate across differences in the "translation spaces" of their daily work, and how their perceptions of "good" and "bad" language impact the ways they communicate with patients. That research focused on an ethnographic project with a summer health program in the Dominican Republic and focus groups with interpreters in the U.S.
Publications
- Bloom-Pojar, Rachel and Danielle DeVasto. (2019). "Visualizing Translation Spaces for Cross-Cultural Health Communication." Present Tense, Vol 7, Issue 3. Special Issue on Contextualizing Care in Cultures: Perspectives on Cross-Cultural and International Health and Medical Communication, edited by Kirk St.Amant and Elizabeth L. Angeli.
- Bloom-Pojar, Rachel, Anderson, Julia, & Storm Pilloff (2019). "Community-Based Writing with Latinx Rhetorics in Milwaukee." Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric, 18(2): 36-65.
- Bloom-Pojar, Rachel. (2018). Translanguaging outside the Academy: Negotiating Rhetoric and Healthcare in the Spanish Caribbean. The National Council of Teachers of English: Studies in Writing and Rhetoric Series.
- My blog post about Translanguaging outside the Academy can be found here.
- Gonzales, Laura and Rachel Bloom-Pojar (2018). “A Dialogue with Medical Interpreters about Rhetoric, Culture, and Language.” Rhetoric of Health and Medicine 1(1-2): 193-212.
- Singer, Sarah, Bloom-Pojar, Rachel, Dubriwny, Tasha N., Kinney, Tiffany, McFarlane, Megan D., Murawski, Carrie, Stockwell, Jennifer, and Robin E. Jensen. (2018). “Reevaluating Our Commitments: Intersectionality, Interdisciplinarity, and the Future of Feminist Rhetoric.” Rhetorics Change/Rhetoric’s Change. Eds. Jenny Rice, Chelsea Graham, and Eric Detweiler. Intermezzo and Parlor Press. 445-467.
- Bloom-Pojar (2018). “Translingual Rhetorical Engagement in Transcultural Health Spaces.” Methodologies for the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine. Eds. Lisa Meloncon and J. Blake Scott. New York: Routledge. 214-234.
- Bloom, Rachel. (2014). “Negotiating Language in Transnational Health Care: Exploring Translingual Literacy through Grounded Practical Theory.” Journal of Applied Communication Research. 42(3): 268-284.