Black Spirits Matter: Locating Spaces of Spiritual Marronage

N. Fadeke Castor

Wenner-Gren Fellow at the School for Advanced Research and Assistant Professor of Religion and Africana Studies,Northeastern University

Join Dr. N. Fadeke Castor for a program exploring how Afro-Indigenous spiritual traditions can help us imagine a different future. Drawing on Black feminist ethnography, Indigenous studies, Black studies, Caribbean studies, and religious studies, Dr. Castor will introduce the concept of “spiritual marronage,” in which communities create intentional spaces of refuge and resistance rooted in African Indigenous cosmologies. Through examples such as the United Maroon Indigenous Peoples and spiritual connections between Trinidad and Standing Rock, the talk will show how sacred practice and collective care offer alternatives to systems marked by racial violence and environmental crisis. Attendees will be invited to consider what changes when we center spirit, land, and kinship as ways of knowing and as foundations for shared political life.

Register to attend the event in person at SAR

Or watch online at www.youtube.com/@sarsantafemultimedia

Photo caption: N. Fadeke Castor Visiting an Ifá Temple In Osogbo, Nigeria (2014). Photo courtesy of N. Fadeke Castor.

About the School for Advanced Research

Established in 1907, the School for Advanced Research (SAR) advances creative thought and innovative work in the social sciences, humanities, and Native American arts. SAR is home to the Indian Arts Research Center (IARC), a leader in community-advised and collaborative Indigenous arts engagement and collections management. Through scholar residency, seminar, and artist fellowship programs, SAR Press publications, and a range of public programs, SAR facilitates intellectual inquiry and human understanding. SAR’s historic 16-acre campus sits on the ancestral lands of the Tewa people in O’gah’poh geh Owingeh or Santa Fe, New Mexico. SAR is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational institution.