It Is In You

Research in Media

Consultation for Film, Television

“With EPA Rule Change, Worries Linger for Those Near Coal Ash.” CNN with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, consultant to producer Nadia Kounang with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, feat. Danielle Bailey Lash (6 min), Summer 2018

“Climate Listening Project: The Story We Want.”  Consultant to film team and director Dayna Reggero, feat. Tracey Brown Edwards, Caroline Rutledge Armijo (7 min), Fall 2017

“America Divided: Private Money in Public Policy.” Consultant to DP and research team on health effects, environmental justice, civil rights contexts of coal ash advocacy, Working Films with EPIX (60 min), Fall 2016

“Faultlines: Healthcare Access and ‘The Coverage Gap’ in America.” Interviewee and consultant to Al-Jazeera America with host Josh Rushing, Medicaid Expansion Coalition of NC NAACP (25 min), Summer 2014  

News Media

“New Study Links Burns to Poverty + Gender Inequality.” The Nation, Malawi (front page). Co-creator of policy paper with Center for Human Rights + Rehabilitation, Malawi, as collaborator (Project Manager) with Dr. Eunice Sahle (Principle Investigator), & Michael Kaiyatsa (Study Coordinator), MPH. Winter 2022

“Fired Up for the Cove” with The Lilies Project. Stokes News. Collaborative community-engaged performances celebrating local racial & educational justice legacies, supported by ArtPlace America. Winter 2019

“Community Weighs in on Coal Ash Closure Proposals.” WFDD. Co-hosted community press conference & co-produced “Respect + Reconciliation: Faces of Belews Creek” submission to NC DEQ Secretary Michael S. Regan, via Community Truths Listening Booth with The Lilies Project. Spring 2019

“US Commission on Civil Rights - NC Hearing on Health & Coal Ash Waste.” US Commission on Civil Rights. Supportive organizing with Southeast USCCR Office for panelists, community speakers based on oral history research for civil rights investigation. Spring 2016

“We Are in the Fight for Our Lives, DEQ Hearing for Coal Ash Clean Up.” Stokes News, WXII 12 NBC. Co-host, supportive organizing for press conference featuring affected community members, clergy with Alliance of Carolinians Together (ACT) Against Coal Ash. Spring 2016

Local Research Partnerships

"Cancer Cultures: Performing the Politics of Health Justice" -- IRB study (UNC 15-2371) with persons who become health justice activists as a result of facing serious illness and cancers, linked to unequal toxic exposures, or to unequal access to healthcare. Explores performance-centered communication linking health, racial, and environmental justice at events regarding affordable healthcare, coal ash waste, and fracking, with NAACP Forward Together Moral Movement. 2015-19

 "Lifestyle Behavior Change for Cancer Patients: Narrative and Gain Frame Communication" -- IRB study (UNC 13-1040) with community-generated, culturally contextual messaging from patients, caregivers, health providers who deal with stages III and IV cancers; based in message-generating and intercept interviews, focus groups. 2013-18

Cultures of Cancer Response -- Cancer Patients, Caregivers, Health Providers at Cancer Centers of NC, Duke, Rex Hospitals, UNC for ongoing interviews; facilitation of stress reduction, health communication, and performance workshops on cultures of response to life-threatening (advanced, metastatic) cancers; participant ethnography. 2012-2017

Environmental Racism and Performing Water Politics in the Black Diaspora -- ethnographic interviews and student service-learning coordination with leaders in Rogers Rd. / Eubanks Neighborhood of Chapel Hill, NC, regarding community organizing and a toxic landfill, 2014

UNC Center for AIDS Research -- Liaison for Health, Faith, and Arts Initiatives, projects such as "What is a CFAR?" Documentary with CFAR Research Core Directors, National Black Church Week of Prayer to Heal HIV/AIDS, Triangle Dance Festival for AIDS, the Voicing Wisdom Project. 2009-2010

Global Research Partnerships

Burns, Human Rights and Capabilities: Creative Communication Experiences in Malawi, IRB study (UNC 18-0682) and ongoing project with AAAD & Burn Unit Faculty, Covenant Scholars Study Abroad at UNC-CH, partnering with the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation, Malawi. Project Manager + Co-Investigator guided by Principal Investigator, Dr. Eunice Sahle, Study Coordinator, Michael Kaiyatsa, MPH. Supported by the College of Arts and Sciences and African Studies Center, UNC at Chapel Hill, 2018-2020, and 2022-ongoing (itisinyou.org/burns-and-capabilities)

Dialogic Audience-Performer Relations and Holistic Social Change in Nautanki Performance, with Dr. Devendra Sharma; Delhi, Vrindivan and Mumbai, India, Summer 2012

Oral History, Performance and Culture: Land Displacement and Titanium Mining on South Coast Kenya, a partnership between UNC Chapel Hill and University of Nairobi (funded by Burch Honors program and Dept of Communication, UNC Chapel Hill), with Dr. Della Pollock, Nairobi, Diani and Kwale District, Kenya, Summer 2011

Research collaboration with health justice, community development, and performance leaders, at University of Dar es Salaam and White Orange Youth Center, Moshi (funded by Boyatt Fellowship), Winter/Spring 2007; and with Dr. Eunice Sahle in UDSM and UNC-CH partnership (funded by UNC Chapel Hill Department of African, African American and Diaspora Studies, Office of Global Health and several community-based grants), Dar es Salaam and Moshi, Tanzania, 2009

Select Conference Presentations

2024 — CADD Planning Group, “Technologies of Joyful Belonging” with Aya Shabu, Dawn X. Henderson, PhD, Shambo Medina, Amber Santibañez, M.Ed., Duke University

2023 — America’s Hallowed Ground, “Dancing Stories: Imagining Alternative Futures and Honoring History in the Wilmington Massacre of 1898” with Aya Shabu

2023 — Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice, “Built By Feel, Community-Based Evaluation” with Aya Shabu (Whistlestop Tours Director), Dawn X. Henderson, PhD (Village of Wisdom)

2022 — University of South Florida, Artist Scholar Residency for Flipping Cancer: Health Justice Communication, Talk for Department of Communication and Judy Genshaft Honors College Health Humanities Program

2020 — Global Education Week for NC Teachers, State Department of Public Instruction partnership with UNC-CH African Studies Center, “Arts for Health Justice: Histories of Mobilization in East Africa”

2020 — Artivate: Arts + Activation in Communities Across the Southeast, ArtPlace America and NC School of the Arts

2020, 2019 — “Life Practice Programming: InterPlay Methods for Professionals” and “Life Practice Programming: InterPlay Methods for Educators and Stewards” at Opening and Closing Conferences, Raleigh, NC, invited

2019 — “Altars for Change: MURAP Scholars’ Research Invites Public Participation” interactive exhibit commissioned for MURAP/Mellon Conference on Urban Planning and Racial Equity, Stone Center, UNC-CH

2018 — “Creative Communication to Improve Cancer Care,” Coping with Cancer 10: Managing Cancer Pain During the Opioid Epidemic, Chapel Hill, NC, competitively selected

2018 — “Theatre of the Oppressed and InterPlay Methods” with Dan Dilliplane, Agnotti Benedict, Kelsey Blackwell, and “InterPlay and Collaborative Global Facilitation: Malawi Burns Project” with Masankho Banda (UCanDanc.org), invited panels, Bethlehem, PA

2017 -- "Performance and Dismantling Racism in University Pedagogy," with Sonny Kelly, accepted to Changing the Race Dance, Bethlehem, PA, invited panel

2016 -- Gender, Bodies, Technology Symposium, Virginia Tech, Roanoke, VA, "Toxicity and Technologies of Bodies on the Line: Performing the Politics of Health Justice Activism." Panel co-presenter with Pavithra Vasudevan, competitively selected

2015 -- NC Environmental Justice Network Summit (scholars, activists, lawyers, community leaders), Whitakers, NC, "Our Bodies, Our Stories: Performance for Intergenerational Movement Building." Research-based and participatory workshop, co-presenter with Pavithra Vasudevan, competitively selected

2014 -- National Communication Association/NCA, Chicago, IL, “(Cultural) Economies of Disease: Pink Ribbon Campaigns’ Global Circulation, A Transnational Feminist Reading", competitively selected

2014 -- Global Africana Conference: Water, Health and Environment, UNC-CH. “Re-presenting Transnational Cancer Philanthropy: Pink Ribbon Citizenship in Kenya”, respondent Dr. Kenneth Janken, invited panel presentation

2013 -- National Communication Association/NCA, Washington, DC, “Embodying Toxicity” Panel Co-Chair, “Performing Cancer Communication” presenter, competitively selected

2013 -- National Communication Association/NCA, Washington, DC, “Holistic Community Performance Towards Social Change: Nautanki in India”, co-presenter with Dr. Devendra Sharma, competitively selected

2013 -- East Africa at 50 Symposium + Global Conference, UNC Chapel Hill. “Mining and Displacement in South Coast Kenya: Oral performance towards restorative justice.” Panel Chair, Dr. Eunice Njeri Sahle

2013 -- Performance Studies International 19/PSi, Stanford University, “Unstuck Time: Performing Cancer Communication” Co-Chair, competitively selected

2013 -- State Legislative Conference, NC AIDS Action Network, “Creative Health Communication Strategies” Panel Chair/Respondent for Center for AIDS Research, Triangle Dance Festival for AIDS colleagues; presenter, competitively selected

2012 -- Association for Theatre in Higher Education/ATHE, “Interactive Theater and Health Communication”, co-presenter with Dr. Ben Saypol, pre-conference training

2012 -- Performance Studies International 18/PSi, Leeds University, UK, “Economies of Dis/ease”, 1.5 hour performance panel/shift, competitively selected 

2010 -- Communication for Development + Social Change, Global Conference, Ohio University, “It is In You: Health Justice Performance in Tanzania”, conference’s invited evening performance

2009 -- Oral History Association National Conference, Louisville, KY, “It is In You: Health Justice Performance in Tanzania”, conference’s invited evening performance

2009 -- National Communication Association/NCA, Chicago, IL, “It is In You: Health Justice Performance in Tanzania” presenter, Chair Dr. Della Pollock, Respondent Dr. E. Patrick Johnson, competitively selected

2009 -- Global Health + Human Rights Conference at Alliance Francaise, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, “It is In You: Health Justice Performance in Tanzania” featured performance, co-presenter with UDSM partners, respondent Dr. Eunice Sahle 

2009 -- Pedagogy + Theatre of the Oppressed Global Conference, Minneapolis, “It is In You: Health Justice Performance in Tanzania” co-presenter with Minneapolis diasporic community artists, competitively selected

2008 -- Doris Duke Foundation + Creative Campus National Initiative, Washington, DC, presenter as UNC “CCC” Artist in Residence, invited performance and presentation

Projects and Papers

Garlock, M. Mining and Displacement in South Coast Kenya: Oral Performance toward Restorative Justice. Forthcoming in “East Africa at 50” ed. Sahle, Ntalaja, (collaborative research program, Kenya)

Sharma, Devendra and Garlock, Marie. Indigenous Folk Performance and Social Change in Nautanki (collaborative research program, India)

Garlock, M. Limitless Trajectories: Life, Death, and Cultures of Cancer Care (doctoral research)

Garlock, M. Gain Frame + Narrative Communication, Lifestyle Behavior Change + Advanced Cancer (doctoral research)

Garlock, M. (Cultural) Economies of Dis/ease: Breast Cancer and Transnational Feminisms (doctoral research)

Garlock, M. Commons of Witnessing to Witnessing: Cross-cultural Oral History Performance (masters research)