Rachèle-Jeanie Delva
Embodied Womanism
Embodied Womanism is a space where research, lived experience, and community engagement come together. Grounded in my work with Black Haitian women, this practice recognizes that stories of migration, caregiving, motherhood, resilience, grief, and healing are carried not only in memory, but also in the body. Through reflection, movement, visual storytelling, and other embodied approaches, I explore ways of translating research into meaningful practices that support personal and collective well-being. In doing so, I seek to bridge scholarship and service, creating opportunities for knowledge to be lived, shared, and used in ways that benefit the communities from which it emerges.
.jpg)
Embodied Praxis: Restoration, Reflection, and Resistance
Project in Development
Project in Development
This initiative is currently in development and informed by ongoing research on the experiences, strengths, and aspirations of Haitian immigrant women in South Florida. The project aims to create accessible opportunities for embodied reflection, restorative practice, and community connection through culturally responsive yoga programming. A grant proposal is being prepared to support the implementation and evaluation of a pilot program in the Little Haiti and North Miami area. Through this work, I hope to further explore how community-based embodied practices can complement existing social services and contribute to women's well-being, resilience, and collective flourishing.
Project Proposal
My research with Haitian immigrant women has revealed a strong desire not only for community and connection, but also for spaces that encourage reflection, self-exploration, and the cultivation of inner resources amid the demands of migration, caregiving, economic hardship, and everyday uncertainty. Although yoga is not a traditional Haitian practice, its emphasis on breath, movement, reflection, and restoration offers valuable tools for supporting this kind of embodied well-being. A proposed community-based yoga initiative in the Little Haiti and North Miami area seeks to create an accessible environment where women can come together to pause, reconnect with themselves, and engage in practices that nurture both personal and collective resilience. In this sense, the project extends beyond addressing material needs alone, recognizing rest, healing, self-care, and joy as meaningful forms of agency and resistance in the face of structural inequities.
Yoga As Embodied Praxis
My certification and training as a yoga teacher expanded my engagement with theories of embodiment by providing a practical framework for understanding how memory, identity, emotion, and lived experience are carried and expressed through the body. This perspective complements my anthropological research on Black Haitian women, whose narratives reveal the ways migration, caregiving, resilience, grief, and healing are experienced not only through storytelling but also through embodied practice. Drawing on anthropological, feminist, and womanist scholarship, I view the body as a site of knowledge, meaning-making, and transformation. Through yoga, I explore how research can move beyond analysis alone to support reflection, well-being, and community-centered forms of care.
Embodied Birth: Choice, Knowledge, and Narrative
Future Project
Black Maternal Health & Embodied B
A future area of my research explores Black maternal health through the lenses of embodiment, reproductive justice, and narrative. Despite significant advances in maternal healthcare, Black women continue to experience disproportionately higher rates of maternal morbidity and mortality than other racial groups, highlighting the urgent need to better understand not only disparities in care but also women's experiences of agency, advocacy, and decision-making throughout pregnancy and childbirth. I am particularly interested in how approaches such as hypnobirthing, physiological birth, home and water birth, and doula-supported care can serve as practices through which women reclaim authority over their bodies, participate more fully in decisions about their care, and author their own birth narratives. Central to this work is the belief that knowledge itself can be transformative—that learning about childbirth, understanding one's options, and developing confidence in one's own body can become meaningful forms of empowerment and resistance within healthcare systems that have not always centered Black women's voices. Building on my experience with participatory and visual methodologies, I also hope to explore how approaches such as photovoice and visual storytelling can help women document, interpret, and share their childbirth experiences in ways that generate both personal reflection and community knowledge. Ultimately, this research continues my broader commitment to understanding how Black women cultivate agency, embody resilience, and transform lived experience into sources of knowledge, healing, and social change.