Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
Brazil Initiative

Rachel Harding -Mysticism and Mothering in Black Women's Social Justice Activism: Brazil/USA

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

12:00pm – 1:30pm

Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.

This presentation examines the interstices of mysticism, mothering/hospitality and community organizing in the lives of women of African descent in Brazil and the United States – a confluence about which there is little extant scholarship.  Using an analytical framework that incorporates history of religions of the Afro-Atlantic diaspora, ethnographic and historical studies of contemporary social justice movements, oral histories, and womanist ethics, my work explores the moral and mystic universe of contemporary Afro-Brazilian and African American women activists.