81.012 - Afro-Latinidades, Spiritualities, and Transformative Education: The Intersections of Afro-Indigenous Religious Practice and Educational Praxis

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Spirituality has the transformative potential to help youth adopt the social responsibility and political agency necessary of critical democratic citizens in this “post-truth” era (Giroux, 2003). For the US-based Afro-Latinx community, Afro-indigenous spirituality and religious traditions have historically been sites of resistance and empowerment in a white supremacist, anti-black, anti-latinx world (Vega, 1999; Dei, 2010). The papers in this session document the multiple ways Afro-indigenous spirituality and religions are embedded in the daily lives of Afro-Latinxs and their importance in the development of agency and self-recognition. Drawing on empirical data collected with youth and adults, we offer insight and suggestion for educators and educational researchers who wish to understand and incorporate the experiences of Afro-Latinxs into their praxis.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 2: Differences and Intersectionalities

Chair

• Krista L. Cortes, University of California - Berkeley

Papers

• "Brujeria Lite": Living and Learning Blackness in the Everyday Spirituality of Afro-Latinxs - Krista L. Cortes, University of California - Berkeley

• From Santa María to Santería: Honoring All of Our Religious Heritages Through the Curriculum - Maria Roberta Diaz, Central Queens Academy

• African Religions and Student Engagement: Classroom Ethnography as Counternarrative - Juliette Rorie, Educators for Excellence

Discussant

• Elizabeth Mendoza, UCI