Ethnographic Refusals Unruly Latinidades

The contributors in Ethnographic Refusals, Unruly Latinidades highlight the value of “radical inclusion” in their research and call for a critical self-reflexivity that marshals the power of bearing witness to move from rhetoric to praxis in support of these methodologies within anthropological perspectives. The essays in this collection do not offer simple solutions to histories of colonialism, patriarchy, and misogyny through which gender binaries and racial hierarches have been imposed and reproduced, but rather provide a crucial opportunity for reflection on and continued reimagination of the contours of Latinidad. These scholars deploy Latinx strategically as part of ongoing dialogues, understanding that their terminologies are inherently imprecise, contested, and constantly shifting. Each chapter explores how Latinx ethnographers and interlocutors work together in contexts of refusal—ever mindful of how power shapes these encounters and the analyses that emerge from them—as well as the extraordinary possibilities offered by ethnography and its role in ongoing social transformation.

The essays in this collection do not offer simple solutions to histories of colonialism, patriarchy, and misogyny through which gender binaries and racial hierarches have been imposed and reproduced, but rather provide a crucial opportunity for reflection on and continued reimagination of the contours of Latinidad.

Original oral and ethnographic sources inform this conceptual history of power in central Africa, imagined through the lens of Kitawala religious practices. Unruly Ideas: A History of Kitawala in Congo recounts the multifaceted history of the Congolese religious movement Kitawala from its colonial beginnings in the 1920s through its continued practice in some of the most conflict-riven parts of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo today. Drawing on a rich body of original oral, ethnographic, and archival research, Nicole Eggers uses Kitawala as a lens through which to address the complex relationship between politics, religion, healing, and violence in central African history. Kitawala, which has roots in the African Watchtower (Jehovah’s Witness) movement, has long been viewed both by scholars and by popular historians as a form of male-dominated, anticolonial insurgency. But just as Kitawalists were never exclusively male, their teachings and activities were never directed solely at the Belgian colonial state, and their yearnings for self-rule were never entirely about the secular realms of authority. A more comprehensive look at the oral and archival evidence reveals they were and are concerned with the morality of power more broadly: on state, communal, and individual levels. Moreover, Kitawalist doctrine is itself unruly, and its preachers, prophets, and practitioners have articulated innumerable interpretations—most quite different from Watchtower Christianity—across space and time. More than a case study of a particular religious movement, Unruly Ideas is a conceptual history of power that investigates how communities and individuals in the region have historically imagined power, sought to access it, wielded it, and policed the morality of its uses. By focusing on power and its intellectual and social history in Congo, Unruly Ideas creates an analytical space in which readers can understand the differing manifestations of Kitawala—from its overtly political and sometimes violent moments to those more aptly characterized as individual quests for spiritual and physical therapy—as varying themes in the same story: the pursuit of wellness in the context of malady. On a more practical level, the book raises important questions about the project of writing histories of places like eastern Congo: a region where the repercussions of decades of political neglect, upheaval, and violence force us to reconsider how we can think about and use oral and archival sources. Finally, the book investigates the embodied and gendered nature of field research and interrogates the intersubjective and reciprocal nature of knowledge production.

"This book explores the ways faith-based organizing among Latina/o communities in Ohio helped to create places of sanctuary, safety, and refuge from 2016-2020. It argues for a conceptualization of sanctuary that is capacious and captures the experiences of immigrants facing family separation and deportation as well as Puerto Rican migrants displaced from natural disasters, like Hurricane Marâia"--

"This volume will assist classroom teachers, teacher candidates, and teacher educators identify where whitewashed civics curricula fail students of color. Topics range from issues facing Asian immigrant communities to the Black Lives Matter at School curriculum"--

**WINNER, D. Scott Palmer Prize for Best Edited Collection, given by the New England Council of Latin American Studies** Introduces new approaches, theoretical trends, and understudied topics in Latinx Studies This groundbreaking work offers a multidisciplinary, social-science oriented perspective on Latinx studies, including the social histories and contemporary lives of a diverse range of Latina and Latino populations. Editors Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas and Mérida M. Rúa have crafted an anthology that is unique in both form and content. The book combines previously published canonical pieces with original, cutting-edge works created for this volume. The sections of the text are arranged thematically as critical dialogues, each with a brief preface that provides context and a conceptual direction for the scholarly conversation that ensues. The editors frame the volume around the “humanistic social sciences,” using the term to highlight the historical and social contexts under which expressive cultural forms and archival records are created. Critical Dialogues in Latinx Studies masterfully sheds light on the diversity and complexity of the everyday lives of Latinx populations, the political economic structures that shape enduring racialization and cultural stereotyping, and the continuing efforts to carve out new lives as diasporic, transnational, global, and colonial subjects.

Language, whether spoken, written, or signed, is a powerful resource that is used to facilitate social justice or undermine it. The first reference resource to use an explicitly global lens to explore the interface between language and social justice, this volume expands our understanding of how language symbolizes, frames, and expresses political, economic, and psychic problems in society, thus contributing to visions for social justice. Investigating specific case studies in which language is used to instantiate and/or challenge social injustices, each chapter provides a unique perspective on how language carries value and enacts power by presenting the historical contexts and ethnographic background for understanding how language engenders and/or negotiates specific social justice issues. Case studies are drawn from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America and the Pacific Islands, with leading experts tackling a broad range of themes, such as equality, sovereignty, communal well-being, and the recognition of complex intersectional identities and relationships within and beyond the human world. Putting issues of language and social justice on a global stage and casting light on these processes in communities increasingly impacted by ongoing colonial, neoliberal, and neofascist forms of globalization, Language and Social Justice is an essential resource for anyone interested in this area of research.

Watchfulness shapes many Chicanxs’ and other People of Color’s everyday lives in San Diego. Experiencing racist discrimination can lead to becoming vigilant, which frames their subjectivity. Focusing particularly on Chicanxs, we show how they seek to intervene against structural inequalities and threats in their lives, such as by re-claiming space, consciousness raising, participating in protests, and healing practices. We argue that contestations surrounding belonging create particularly watchful selves and that this is a significant aspect of borderland lifeworlds more broadly. The book advances the Anthropology of borders, coloniality, subjectivity, and race, as well as contributing to Chicano and Latino Studies, and Urban Studies. Pushing the boundaries of conventional approaches, this book is methodologically innovative by including team fieldwork, digital ethnography, and illustrative work by a local artist. It fills a gap in Security Studies by examining peer-to-peer vigilance beyond top-down surveillance and bottom-up "sousveillance," and expanding previous understandings of watchfulness as an ambivalent practice that can also express care and contribute to community building, as well as representing a "way of life."