Research Focus Group Talk: Berry People: A Study of Catholic Political Theologies of the Child

How might Indigenous scholars theorize with stories from our childhoods while enacting the Indigenous critical theory and praxis of refusal? This talk engages the Inupiaq haunting story of the Berry People along with North American histories of Indigenous family separation to examine Catholic political theologies of children. In doing so, it illustrates the ongoing necessity of Indigenous political savviness in defending communities and nations from the haunted whistlings of Christian religious institutions for Indigenous children and Lands.

Dr. Elisha Chi is a President’s and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her interdisciplinary work engages Indigenous studies, ethics, religious studies, and political theology. Elisha’s work clarifies the necessities and possibilities of institutional decolonization, specifically Indigenous land return, as they apply to Catholic histories, practices, and land holdings. Her current projects center on Landback and Catholic political theologies, and her next project will examine the Alaska boarding schools her family attended in order to explore Inupiat and other Alaska Native norms of refusal.

Zoom attendance link here

Cosponsored by the IHC’s Global Childhood Media Research Focus Group