Liberated to the Bone

A way to deepen our understanding of the relationship between social justice and the work of healing—healing as individuals, communities, and societies.

The newest title in the Emergent Strategy Series, Liberated to the Bone, addresses the intersections between healing our physical bodies and healing our social relations which are shaped by violence. Bodyworker and cultural worker Susan Raffo addresses intergenerational trauma, social justice, organizing, and how all of these things are relevant to our bodies. The book illuminates three different approaches to healing: ending violence, the significance of being rooted in the present, and creating the conditions to address unfinished histories and generational trauma. By showing how these approaches are intricately connected—physically and emotionally—Raffo interrupts the traumatic binaries of the political and spiritual, the physical and intellectual, and healing and organizing.

Susan Raffo is a writer, cultural worker, and bodyworker. She is part of the Healing Histories Project, which focuses on transforming the medical-industrial complex and confronting eugenic legacies. She works with REP, a Black-led community-based crisis response model grounded in the belief that we have the ability to love and protect one another without giving our agency to systems built to destroy, consume, or commodify us. Author of Queerly Classed (South End Press, 1997) and Restricted Access (Seal Press, 1999), she is published in a range of anthologies and websites. She is based in Minneapolis, MN.