One of the goals of this seminar is to examine how knowledge production has been re-envisioned at specific institutions or organizations. This panel explores partnerships and challenges between university systems or international institutionalized bodies, and community activism. Topics include reflection on pedagogies of the oppressed, the World Council of Churches Program to Combat Racism, and the University of California’s entanglement in repatriation policies and intrusive modes of knowledge production which marginalize indigenous and other voices.
This paper explores the collaborative production of knowledge regarding how to build agency for justice-oriented social change through teaching in religious studies and theology. It traces a six-year project of experiential research into method for teaching community organizing as a required course in theological education. The project began as a collaborative experiment between a community-based community organizing network and a university-based theological school. Pedagogy included interrogation of the whiteness historically dominant in community-organizing training. Assessment draws on evaluations by students, faculty, and community organizers, and on three theoretical fields: community-organizing theory developed by feminist and Black women organizers, critical pedagogy, and decolonial theory. Questions arise: What are guidelines for teaching social change arts in academic curricula, and for courses with explicit political agendas? How can such courses address white supremacist undergirdings of theological/religious studies education? What are lines of accountability and reciprocity between community-based and university-based leaders in such courses?
Engaging the largest public university system in the US on two fronts involving the institution's treatment of Indigenous peoples has put me in an awkward but instructive position. In each case issues of law and policy are central. Wearing my good cop hat, I am member of a University of California (UC) campus repatriation committee and find this work compelling and productive. Wearing my bad cop badge, my misgivings pertain to the direct involvement of the UC in the Thirty Meter Telescope project in Hawai`i, about which I have gone on record with the University Regents on multiple occasions. I will describe my work on both fronts, pointing to the ironic way appeals to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples links them. Concluding, I will propose some thoughts about best practices and possible risks when engaging public universities from the inside.
This paper will critically examine the theologies and knowledges produced through the World Council of Churches Programme to Combat Racism (PCR) in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1970s and early 1980s. Drawing on archival research, theological analysis, and interviews with church leaders and activists, it will explore the relationship between international networks and local community led responses to social justice. Using the PCR’s work in NZ as a case study, the paper will also reflect on activism as a form of lived theology, which can support contemporary anti-racist strategies and action.