Spirituality and emancipatory struggle in higher education

Abstract

The shifting religious and spiritual topography of the United States shows that while Christians are the dominant religious group, the population experienced a striking decline (7.8%) between 2007 and 2014; all the while, non-dominant religious groups experienced an increase (1.2%) in the same period (Masci D, Lipka M. Americans may be getting less religious, but feelings of spirituality are on the rise. Pew Research Center, 2016). Other significant changes have included the rise (6.7%) in persons identifying as religiously unaffiliated (e.g., agnostic, atheist, or no designation), declining religiosity, and an increasing sense of spirituality (Masci D, Lipka M. Americans may be getting less religious, but feelings of spirituality are on the rise. Pew Research Center, 2016). A related phenomenon, though not prima facie, is the groundswell of social justice and resistance movements across the landscape of US higher education. Western systems of knowledge production often reinforce a perceived “natural” logic that delinks religiosity, spirituality, and social justice. For some communities of color and people from minoritized social groups, perpetuating the disconnection of religiosity, spirituality, and social justice work may reflect an “apartheid of knowledge” (Bernal DD, Villalpando O, Equity Excell Educ 35(2): 169–180, 2002) that erases whole swaths of life and inhibits the production of knowledge under the veneer of scientific knowledge. This study will explore how spiritually engaged justice workers negotiate the nexus of their religious and/or spiritual communities and social justice work in systems of higher education. The project explores two broad questions: (a) In what ways does participation in a spiritual community facilitate and/or impede doing social justice work in higher education? (b) Secondly, what abilities, contacts, knowledge, practices, resources, and skills do participants cultivate in their spiritual communities that they find useful to their social justice work in higher education? In this chapter, I will foreground the perspectives of justice workers who negotiate US systems of higher education while ascribing to religious and/or spiritual traditions that have roots in the Asia Pacific region and denote a broad spectrum of belief and practice (e.g., Bahá’í, Buddhist, Yoga, etc.). As an African-descended, spiritually engaged Christian activist, and Black woman in the United States, I bring womanist discursive lenses to explore the role of belief, spirituality, and religion in the justice work of faculty and administrators in US higher education institutions.