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 postwar Britain. 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 sexual and reproductive health, health policy, and decolonization in Britain.

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. 
 

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.
 

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
  • Health activism and advocacy

     

Relevant Publications and Works



Peer-reviewed articles and book chapters

  • Rusterholz, C., Samake-Bäckert, N., Severs G. ‘Who does history? Reflection on writing an intersectional history of sexual and reproductive health in Britain’ Traverse: Revue d’histoire, forthcoming 2026.

  • Samake, N. ‘Light and Space-Making in the Accra Airport City, Ghana’ in Roadsides Journal: Architecture and/as Infrastructure, 2020.

  • Samake, N. (2022) “Dark and Light at Airport City” in What is Critical Urbanisms? Urban Research as Pedagogy. Zurich: Park Books.

Policy reports

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

Conference Papers

  • 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.