Queer(y)ing Naga Indigenous Theology

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-51
Author(s):  
Inatoli Aye

This article engages Queer Theology in conversation with Naga Indigenous Theology. A Naga folk poem is employed to help navigate the intricacies of indigenous experiences and the questions of sexuality in Naga Indigenous Theology. I do this by engaging both Marcella Althaus-Reid and Wati Longchar in their Liberation Theology and move towards queering Longchar’s theology. Using the hermeneutical lens of Althaus-Reid, I demonstrate that there are possible avenues of queering Longchar’s theology. There is also the prerequisite of a justice lens that demands a deconstruction of the colonial legacy in Indigenous Theology. This article shows that Naga Indigenous Theology rooted in Liberation Theology has a potential to propose a Queer Naga Indigenous Theology.

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-296
Author(s):  
Robyn Henderson-Espinoza

Indecent Theology has provided both Feminist Theology and Liberation Theology with new contours for rethinking bodies, power, dominance, and submission. With regard to the logic of dominance that radically pushes the margins of the margins into a form of inexistent living, I suggest a material turn to rethink the contours that are evoked with Indecent Theology. Materialism has long stood as a philosophy opposing the overwhelming dominance of language and the poststructuralist emphasis that has emerged as the ‘linguistic turn’. Considering ‘new materialism’ as a theoretical platform to reread Indecent Theology provides theologies and ethics an opportunity to re-imagine indecent methodologies through indecency, a sort of ethical perversion. I suggest an indecent turn in mobilizing materialism and kink as theories to reread indecent theology for a productive queer materialist sexual theology. The feminist liberation theology of Marcella Althaus-Reid pushes both feminism and liberation into new contours of power and submission and initiates new contours of queer sexuality into the discourse. When analysing Althaus-Reid’s work, we are brought to attention to the margins of the margins, an awareness of the struggle for power and control by those deemed less than. There are contours of power at and in the margins of the margins, those who occupy ‘bottom space’. From a kink/BDSM orientation, I propose to reread Alrhaus-Read’s feminist liberation theology as decolonial erotics that helps to generate a productive materialist queer sexuality. The overarching methodology of this article is a quasi-auto ethnographic investigation into the ways in which the contours of race, class, gender, sex, sexuality, and ability affect power and submission and in turn reframes both queer theology and queer sexuality that is rooted in the living out of a very particular theology and ethics, which is rooted in queer relating. Theology can neither materialize in a vacuum nor in isolation. An indecent turn to(wards) a queer sexual theology that is rooted in a queer relationality demands attention to the interdependence of queer relating that is materialized through the interdependency of the growing queer desires of bodies, power, dominance, and submission.


2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (01) ◽  
pp. 76-101
Author(s):  
PETER M. SANCHEZ

AbstractThis paper examines the actions of one Salvadorean priest – Padre David Rodríguez – in one parish – Tecoluca – to underscore the importance of religious leadership in the rise of El Salvador's contentious political movement that began in the early 1970s, when the guerrilla organisations were only just beginning to develop. Catholic leaders became engaged in promoting contentious politics, however, only after the Church had experienced an ideological conversion, commonly referred to as liberation theology. A focus on one priest, in one parish, allows for generalisation, since scores of priests, nuns and lay workers in El Salvador followed the same injustice frame and tactics that generated extensive political mobilisation throughout the country. While structural conditions, collective action and resource mobilisation are undoubtedly necessary, the case of religious leaders in El Salvador suggests that ideas and leadership are of vital importance for the rise of contentious politics at a particular historical moment.


1970 ◽  
pp. 36-47
Author(s):  
Fadwa Al-Labadi

The concept of citizenship was introduced to the Arab and Islamic region duringthe colonial period. The law of citizenship, like all other laws and regulations inthe Middle East, was influenced by the colonial legacy that impacted the tribal and paternalistic systems in all aspects of life. In addition to the colonial legacy, most constitutions in the Middle East draw on the Islamic shari’a (law) as a major source of legislation, which in turn enhances the paternalistic system in the social sector in all its dimensions, as manifested in many individual laws and the legislative processes with respect to family status issues. Family is considered the nucleus of society in most Middle Eastern countries, and this is specifically reflected in the personal status codes. In the name of this legal principle, women’s submission is being entrenched, along with censorship over her body, control of her reproductive role, sexual life, and fertility.


Author(s):  
Matt Eisenbrandt ◽  
Benjamín Cuéllar

In 1980, a death squad linked to business tycoons and military commanders murdered Archbishop Oscar Romero for denouncing widespread repression and poverty in El Salvador. Romero was known as the “voice of the voiceless,” and his criticism of the oligarchs who dominated the economy and the Security Forces that tortured and murdered civilians made Romero a military target. Two decades after his assassination, the Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA) found one of the conspirators, Álvaro Saravia, living in California and launched a wide-ranging investigation into the death squad and its financiers. This book chronicles the life and death of the Catholic martyr, examining his actions and situating his years as archbishop in the broader context of the Salvadoran clergy’s embrace of Liberation Theology. It also analyzes, through excerpts from witness interviews and trial testimony, the mindset of the death squad members, their leader Roberto D’Aubuisson, and their wealthy backers, that propelled them to want Romero dead. The U.S. government played an important and contradictory role in developing the death squads and funding the military from which they sprang while also investigating their crimes and seeking to keep them in check. Within this complicated historical context, the book provides a first-hand account of the investigation and U.S. legal case that led to the only court verdict ever reached for Archbishop Romero’s murder.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Chavoshian ◽  
Sophia Park

Along with the recent development of various theories of the body, Lacan’s body theory aligns with postmodern thinkers such as Michael Foucault and Maurice Merlot-Ponti, who consider body social not biological. Lacan emphasizes the body of the Real, the passive condition of the body in terms of formation, identity, and understanding. Then, this condition of body shapes further in the condition of bodies of women and laborers under patriarchy and capitalism, respectively. Lacan’s ‘not all’ position, which comes from the logical square, allows women to question patriarchy’s system and alternatives of sexual identities. Lacan’s approach to feminine sexuality can be applied to women’s spirituality, emphasizing multiple narratives of body and sexual identities, including gender roles. In the social discernment and analysis in the liberation theology, we can employ the capitalist discourse, which provides a tool to understand how people are manipulated by late capitalist society, not knowing it. Lacan’s theory of ‘a body without a head’ reflects the current condition of the human body, which manifests lack, yet including some possibilities for transforming society.


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