Saturday, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM | Sheraton, The Fens (Fifth Floor)
Session ID: A22-416
Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
The AAR 2025 theme of freedom provides opportunity for the Ecclesial Practices Unit and the Latino/a Religion, Culture and Society to explore the emancipatory potential of autoethnography. As Gloria Anzaldúa’s autohistoria-teoría illustrates, self-historical writing provides critical, analytical, and spiritual insights to theorize experiences against broader sociocultural discourses. This session explores the conference theme of “freedom” by engaging the following questions:
- Embodied Knowledge and Freedom: What role do trauma and intergenerational trauma play in narratives of freedom? How does migration, the journey from one location to another in search "to be free,” shed light on individual and communal wounds?
- Crossing Boundaries and Freedom: How do borders (metaphorical and real) frame and/or constrain the possibilities for liberation?
- Memory and Legacy of Resistance: How do our ancestral memories and histories shape our understanding of freedom and resistance? What role does collective memory play in the legacies of colonialism, racism, and patriarchy, and how does it shape our ongoing struggle for freedom?