Profile
Naomi Samake

Naomi Samake-Bäckert

PhD researcher in International History and Politics
PhD Affiliate, Gender Centre, Projet FNS Excelenza Race and Sexual and Reproductive Health charities in postwar Britain, from a transnational perspective (1960-2020)
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Spoken languages
English, Swiss-German, German, Spanish

PhD Thesis
 

Provisional PhD Thesis Title: Race, Health, and Women’s Rights: Lessons from the Black Women’s Movement in Britain, 1970-2000

PhD Supervisor: Caroline Rusterholz

PhD Co-Supervisor: Janne Nijman

Expected Completion Date: Fall 2027

Naomi is a PhD candidate at the Department of International History and Politics and research assistant to a Swiss National Science Foundation funded project on Race and Ethnicity: Sexual Health and Reproductive Experiences (RE:SHaRE) supervised by Dr. Caroline Rusterholz. 

Naomi’s research focuses on activism led by and for racially minoritized communities that informed experiences around sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in the last decades of the twentieth century. From the 1970s onward, Women of African, Caribbean, and Asian descent in Britain organized and set up groups to denounce institutions that had SRH outcomes. From the 1980s, some of these women’s groups set up their own SRH services. Drawing upon archival materials from these activists, medical articles, media analysis, urban policies, and oral history interviews, Naomi’s research takes on a reproductive justice framework and places these women’s experiences and their activism into broader histories of medicine, sexual and reproductive health policy, and global health.

As part of her doctoral work, Naomi pursued further studies in Black British history and histories of health and healthcare in Britain as a visiting student to the University of Cambridge. In Spring 2026, she co-organized a workshop entitled ‘Archives of Care: Black Health Histories in Twentieth Century Britain’ at Gonville & Caius College (University of Cambridge). The workshop brought historians of race and health as well as archivists the Black Cultural Archives and Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage together to engage in conversations around the preservation of racialized histories in medicine, health policy, and healthcare.
 

Profile
 

Naomi is passionate about applied and collaborative research. She bridges her research with community building practices and community engagement initiatives that strive for social justice, health equity, and inclusion. 

Naomi, alongside her research team, is collaborating with a number of organizations that have and continue to center the experiences of Black and Brown communities in Britain. The growing list of these organizations can be found on the RE:SHaRE webpage.
 

Areas of expertise
 

  • The social and political construction of race and ethnicity
  • Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
  • Oral History
  • Health Policy
  • Urban Histories and Urban Policy
     

Relevant Publications and Works



Peer-reviewed articles and book chapters

Policy reports

  • McIntyre, K. and Samake-Bäckert, N. Summary Report on Transform Fresno Community Engagement. KMCSS Solutions, LLC. Philadelphia, PA, 2024.

Conference Papers

  • University of Birmingham (June 2026) “Medical Surveillance: Counter narratives of reproductive health by Black women’s groups in 1970s/1980s Britain”, Modern British Studies Conference on ‘The Polycrisis? Historical Roots and Critical Perspectives’.

  • University of Cambridge, Gonville & Caius College (May 2026) “Production of Knowledge: Black feminist counter narratives around sexual and reproductive health”, Black Health Histories in 20th Century Britain Workshop.

  • University of Cambridge, Gonville & Caius College (April 2026) “Sexual and Reproductive Health and the Black Women's Movement in late twentieth century Britain”, MCR Research Day.

  • University of Geneva (March 2026) “In the spirit of Black feminisms: Reflections on Co-Producing an Exhibition”, facilitator to the Conference Universitaire De Suisse Occidentale (CUSO) doctoral skill-building workshop on Co-Production.

  • University of Strathclyde Glasgow (March 2026) “Reproductive Surveillance: Britain’s Black Women’s Movement, Heathrow Airport and the Medical Officer in 1979”, Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare (CSHHH) Glasgow Seminar Series.

  • Humboldt University (August 2025) “The emergence of Black Women’s Centers: Programming the right to (sexual and reproductive) health”, the European Association for the History of Medicine and Health Conference on ‘Health Beyond Medicine’.

  • Cambridge University (June 2025) “Situating policy and public health: Black women’s centers in the 1980s”, Histories of racialised communities in Britain: A workshop for racially minoritised ECRs/PhDs.

  • Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (June 2025) “The Rise and Fall of Black Women’s Centers: Black Women’s SRH Activism in the 1980s”, Race and sexual and reproductive health in historical perspectives workshop.

  • University of Strathclyde Glasgow (July 2024). “1979 demonstration against virginity testing practices at Heathrow Airport: Coalition building among racialized communities”, Society for the Social History of Medicine Biennial Conference on 'Resistance'.

  • Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (March 2023) “Resistance, Activism, and Movements: A historiography review of SRH Activism in the UK, 1970-2000”, Gender Centre workshop.

 

Other Events
 

Research Experience
 

  • Research Officer at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University in the City of New York, 2022-2023
  • Lead Researcher and Consultant, Thrivance Project, 2022
  • Graduate Researcher at the African Centre for Cities (ACC), University of Cape Town, 2020
     

Fellowships, Grant and Awards
 

  • Swiss National Science Foundation (doctoral mobility grant), 2026. Amount: 20’000.00 CHF.