Feminist Intersectional Approaches to Transforming Violence: Perspectives from Emerging Scholars

This session, sponsored in collaboration with the AAR/SBL Women’s Caucus, highlights the research of emerging scholars exploring the critical intersections of gender, religion, and violence. Engaging with the conference theme “Violence, Nonviolence, and the Margin,” the panelists offer perspectives on how women and women-identifying people confront and resist the multifaceted dimensions of violence justified by religious and societal norms. Through intersectional analyses that incorporate class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, this session delves into the new ways in which religion, spirituality, and theological reflections empower responses to violence and envision nonviolent praxis. From the postcolonial contemplative practices of Filipinas and the healing altars of La Virgen de Guadalupe among survivors of intimate partner violence, to the incarnational theology as a foundation for non-violence and the reimagined ecclesial hospitality practices informed by feminist trauma theology, this session investigates the role of religion in both perpetuating and challenging structures of violence.