Dr. Nicole Truesdell is an anthropologist and abolitionist scholar and teacher. Dr. Truesdell's previous experience includes being an administrator and faculty member at Brown University and Beloit College, working with students who are underserved and underrepresented in higher education. At Brown, she founded the Institute for Transformative Practice, which housed 7 student-focused identity centers, and worked to create collaborative, cooperative, and coalition based programming and research around collective liberation.

At Beloit College, she created the Office of Academic Diversity and Inclusiveness which housed all programs that worked with underserved and underrepresented students in higher education. Dr. Truesdell obtained her Ph.D. in 2011 from Michigan State University in Anthropology, with a focus on race, racism, citizenship, and the nation-state.

Her work continues to push the boundaries around the concept of the human and humanity by using a Black decolonial lens to imagine what is and can be possible for a liberatory humanity. She connects with people without the systems of institutes through her Patreon, TikTok, podcasts, speaking engagements and salon-style dinners. Her goal is to empower and equip the next generation of abolitionists.

In This Episode:

• How Dr. Nicole Truesdale began her journey towards abolitionist based work, and what continues to drive her forward.
• How her revelations during the pandemic led Dr. Nicole to start teaching to the public on Tik Tok.
• Why Dr. Nicole doesn't believe in allyship and instead advocates for abolitionsism.
• The relationship between white femininity and white patriarchy and how these feed the destructive contract that is the perception of whiteness.
• How to approach and understand decolonial work while remaining connected to/or rediscovering our humanity.
• Dr. Nicole suggests that group study in history is the key to abolitionism.
• The effects of religion and the ways it has pushed forward the violent colonial agenda.
• If people connect back to their ancestral ways, It's going to help us do the abolitionism work.
• Why understanding different pantheons and cosmologies are so important in our understanding of spirituality.
• Dr. Truesdell's connections to the Orishas and how these spiritual practices and cosmologies teach us how to live with reciprocity.

Full Show Notes:

• Dr Nicole's Tik Tok
• Dr Nicole's Patreon
• To support my work: Cashapp: $drnicoletruesdell
• Brittany Simone Anderson's Instagram
• Laura Chung Instagram
• The Werk Podcast Instagram
• The Werk Podcast Website
• YouTube Channel

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