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In this project, I conduct a critical ethnography of Nuestra Cuir Chingoña, a Queer Latine Migrant Christian ministry, to explore how active resistance – as a Queer theoethic – critiques economic, social, and political hegemonies in churches. I engage Calvillo’s (2022) and Sostaita’s (2024) treatment of sanctuary as an alignment of Nuestra Cuir Chingoña’s approach to active resistance – parentesco (“kinship”) – which affirms relationality through alternative kinship networks that challenge eschatological essentialisms upheld by soteriological violence. Furthermore, by theorizing active resistance as a Queer theoethic, I engage Miranda’s (2022) and Geerling and Lundberg’s (2020) research on critical ethnography as a deconstruction of “value-free” knowledge production to counter eschatological essentialisms and soteriological violence that inhibit Queer livability, particularly for Queer Latine Migrant Christians and similarly oppressed groups. In this way, I attempt to contribute to scholarly-activist discourse of reimagining eschatological and soteriological interventions that assert Queer livability in churches.
Throughout this paper, I explore the moral imperative and spiritual obligation of reproductive justice seekers and Denver organizers to advocate and organize for migrants in the wake of Donald Trump’s reelection and promise to enact the largest deportation this country has ever seen. As a Latine social ethicist, I engage liberative, faith-aware ethical frameworks drawn from the tenets of Latin American social ethics: lo cotidiano, el acompañamiento, and doing ethics en conjunto. I argue that because of our culturally Catholic upbringing and lived experiences as migrants or children of immigrants ourselves, organizers like me hold epistemological privileges in advocating for these communities at the legislative level. We are the trusted messengers.
Maize, a sacred gift from the god Quetzalcoatl, has been at the heart of Mesoamerican civilizations for millennia, shaping not only diets but also societal structures, rituals, and cultural identity. I explore how maize continues to be a powerful symbol of resistance in contemporary Mexico, particularly through its role in the fight against globalization and genetic modification. Likewise, I highlight Mexico's recent ban on genetically modified (GMO) corn as a pivotal moment for food sovereignty, indigenous rights, and environmental justice. By analyzing both historical and contemporary cultivation practices, along with the photographic work of David Lauer, which documents the resilience of indigenous maize cultures, I demonstrate how maize serves as both a living cultural artifact and a political tool of resistance in the face of global challenges like climate change and corporate agricultural control. Building upon the concept of México Profundo by Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, I argue that maize is not only central to Mexico's physical sustenance but also to the soul of its indigenous communities, offering pathways to biodiversity conservation and cultural preservation. My overall research examines how cultural values shape our understanding of the world and challenges us to reconsider what truly sustains us.
Brazil’s increase in ecological catastrophes is directly associated with the permanence of ancestral colonization dispositifs in governing territories and populations—especially among the poorest, most peripheral, and racialized. From the perspective of the Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa, the Falling of the Brazilian Sky—our climate apocalypse—has its cosmopolitical origins in the colonial invasion of Amerindian territories by the “napë” [white men] and the extractive violence of the “people of the commodity.” Based on the ethnographic description of what would come to be considered one of the greatest environmental crime-disasters in the modern history of mining industries in the world, the collapse of the iron ore tailings mine in the city of Mariana (Minas Gerais, Brazil), I aim to create a critique dialogue between Process Philosophy, Philosophy of Multiplicity, Amerindian cosmologies, and Black Feminist Theory to explore the state of cosmopolitical conflict observed in Brazilian ecological catastrophes.