Category Archives: Ethics

Mourning & Loss: when intellectual giants become part of memory past

Ethics Latinos Theology 1 Comment

OttoDespite the news that broke yesterday concerning Dr. Otto Maduro’s passing, I begin this morning as I normally do:  get up, take the dogs out, brush my teeth, shower, dress, and walk to the bus.  What is different about this morning that impacts me tremendously is how my mind continued to think about both Ada María Isasi-Díaz and Otto Maduro.  These two folks were intellectual giants for our community and others, and I suspect that my friends and colleagues on FaceBook will highlight their memories of Otto.  That’s what I’d like to do today in this blog post, but I’d like to frame my ‘memories’ with a question:  What happens when intellectual giants become part of memory past–when stories that begin with “I remember when…” or “I’ll never forget when…?”  I can share that I’ll never forget when…this past year at AAR as I sat on the panel for Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Otto came up to me and said he loved my hair, then gave me the sweetest kiss on the cheek.  I’ll never forget that exchange, and his gentleness toward and for my queer mestizaje body.  That moment will stay with me; it is memory.  That moment is how our commitment to doing theology with one another should be:  gentle, celebratory, and lovely.

Our commitment to do theology en conjunto means that these stories shape and form our theologies and ethics.  We don’t invent a new theology; we borrow and shape what has existed before.  We live into these memories helping the memories of our intellectual giants take new shape for justice for all living things.  We don’t lay aside the very important work that Otto and Ada created, regardless of how we feel about it (we all have our critics).  We do theology together, with memories, with joy, with one another.  We mourn the loss of intellectual giants, but we do not stop there.  We celebrate their work, and we find ways to continue their intellectual patterns.

Let us remember Otto for his pioneering work in sociology.  Let us not forget his commitment to multiple communities, and his gentleness that surpassed our own.

Thoughts on Identity

Ethics phd Religion Theology 3 Comments

I am neck deep in writing the dissertation, and the issue of identity has emerged:  who am I?  I was talking with a colleague friend the other day and I exclaimed:  ”I think I’m a Philosophical Theologian who does and thinks about Ethics.”  She agreed.  This propelled me to continue my thinking around identity, and specifically who really am I as a scholar.  My degrees have all come from Schools of Theology and I have been taught to think theologically and philosophically about all things.  Now, as I move to finish my Ph.D. I wonder what this all means, and how my identity continues to become.

As I ponder this, I think about the tradition of European Continental Philosophy and my own exposure to the tradition of Social Ethics.  I’ve been inclined to identify with European Continental Philosophy and various Latin American Thinkers–both seem to want to challenge existing ideologies and offer ‘new’ ways of thinking.  So, who does this make me?  A child who was born in the State of Texas in the United States who grew into an adult in West Texas at a Baptist University, then flourished in a seminary in Chicago, now completing a dissertation in the West, Colorado.  My physical and intellectual nomadism–that particular type of movement between places–has birthed an identity.  I call it:  Philosopher-Theologian-Ethicist.  I write philosophy, some say.  I do Ethics, others claim.  I think theologically on most days, and find a particular rhythm that is almost liturgical in my thinking.

Identity is challenging.  There is no clear-cut stable identity that emerges.  It is always a negotiated identity, an unstable identity–an identity that irrupts in the borderlands and becomes in between points of contact.  It is a nomadic identity  whose subjectivity carefully unfolds while moving in between certain points along the way.

I do not seek to categorize this identity as a ‘something,’ but rather allow it to unfold and become whatever it may.

The Society of Christian Ethics, 2013

Ethics 1 Comment
Robyn in Chicago

I’ve just landed in Chicago, IL for the Society of Christian Ethics Annual meeting.  This year I have the opportunity to be in conversation with Latino/a Ethicists on a panel honoring Ada María Isasi-Díaz.  I’m very happy to have this opportunity and develop the conversation around her work.  She is an important voice for the Latino/a community and I’m looking forward to hearing all the papers.  In addition to my work with the Latino/a Group, I am co-convening the LGBT Issues & Queer Studies in Ethics Group with Dr. Thelathia “Nikki” Young.  We’re excited to see how this group takes shape and what possibilities emerge from this group.  This group was formerly the LGBT Issues Interest Group, and has now taken a turn to include “queer” in its title.  We’re very happy to have Heike Peckruhn, Mary Hunt, and Jennifer Leath as our panelists this year and are looking forward to hearing from them.  Lastly, my time this year will be spent engaging w/ colleagues and friends; folks who encourage and challenge my ideas, nurture and guide me as a baby junior scholar, and create a robust relating framework for a community of difference.  This, by far, is the conference that I wait for each year to attend.  It is friendly, focussed, and good for my soul.

Robyn in Chicago

My Interest in Politics as an Ethical Project

Ethics Politics No Comments

As my coffee sits in the French Press and before I take my first sip of this dark roast, I thought I’d take some time to blog.  Writing the dissertation keeps me from blogging on a more regular basis.  Yet, with the election season in full-swing, my attention continues to be drawn to politics.

I am not so much interested in the political parties as a whole; I tend to think they are of the same mindset.  That is, there are not really two separate parties anymore than there are real conservatives and real liberals.  Politics these days tends to be the project of ideology, and a poor project at that.  Take, for example, the Supreme Court.  When I woke up, I checked my Twitter feed, and found the following link on “Up w/ Chris Hayes:”  http://upwithchris.tumblr.com/post/32590161141/law-professors-andrew-martin-and-kevin-quinn-have …  This link shows the Martin-Quinn project where they have analyzed the Supreme Court and whether or not it is a conservative court or liberal court.  It is here where my interest lies in Politics as an Ethical Project.  Is it the ideologies that guide our political process or pragmatism?  And, which is a better tool in creating a sustainable political system?  Does the Supreme Court add to the creation of a sustainable political system, or detract from a certain sustainability, given its focus and commitment to ideologies?

The Supreme Court has on its hands the issues of civil rights, women’s rights, affirmative action, and same-sex marriage.  Will these issues be pursued from an ideological perspective, or will pragmatism drive the Supreme Court’s decisions?  We will all wait and see, and my guess is that ideology will continue to drive the decisions of the Supreme Court.  I wonder, though, when will Politics depart from their commitments to ideology and turn to Pragmatism?  And, if Pragmatism isn’t the best option, then what is?  Doesn’t Pragmatism suggest a type of relationality in politics?  Isn’t this a good thing?  A Pragmatic orientation might serve us all better than any given ideology, but what type of Pragmatism should we ask for in our Court system?  That, I think, is the more pointed question.

Remembering Ada María Isasi-Diaz

Ethics Feminism Religion Theology No Comments

Today is a sad day for so many.  I was just notified that Ada passed away this morning.  While I knew she was struggling, a common theme in her Mujerista theology, to battle the cancer and infections that were destroying her body.  She ended her life en la lucha–in the struggle–yet not so in deep struggle, since she passed away in her deep sleep, and I am grateful for her pioneering a way for me, a Queermestiz@ to participate in the fullness of life.  While my life is not free from struggle, I have been able to look to Ada and her work (including her kinship among Womanist scholars) as a way to imagine queer\Ethics.  Thank you Ada for giving us a way to think and explore and imagine Hispanic/Latina Liberation Theology & Ethics.

I am not alone as a mujerista, a queermestiz@.  I am surrounded by the Hispanic Theological Community who proudly recognizes your contribution to Liberation Theology.  Your memory and theological imagination and commitment to la lucha remains with me and others this day, and will as we continue to take steps for liberation.

While I enflesh loads of doubt, I cannot help but call you a theological gift helping to pluralize women’s experience in theology and ethics.  You will be missed, eternally.

5th CSBR Sexuality Institute

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5th CSBR Sexuality Institute | Sept 18-23, 2012 | Alexandria, Egypt
Call for Applications | Submission Deadline: May 20, 2012

View it in your browser (http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=0c55a9feec53d5aa297d3ecc3&id=f3c1b8cd69&e=).
<http://www.csbronline.org/institute/about-the-institute/>
As the only international network working on sexual and bodily rights in Muslim societies, CSBR has succeeded in creating an alternative discourse and progressive spaces in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and
Southeast Asia. The CSBR Sexuality Institute brings together leading sexual
and reproductive rights activists, academics and researchers. Held previously in Turkey (2009), Indonesia (2010), and Malaysia (2008/2011),
with participants from 23 countries throughout Asia, Africa and the Middle
East, the institutes include lectures, group work, round-tables, panels,
site visits and film screenings, as well as a methodology to engage
participants’ own experiences around sexuality.

<http://www.csbronline.org/institute/application-form/>
Designed as an intensive six-day participatory group training, the Institute will be limited to 20-22 participants. Do you have a minimum of 2 years experience working in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights? Are you committed to undertake efforts to promote sexual and bodily health and rights at national and international level? Do you represent an organization/institution engaged in sexual and reproductive health and rights advocacy, research or fieldwork? Please submit this form http://www.csbronline.org/institute/application-form/

online and send a C.V. to coordinator@csbronline.org

subject:  Sexuality Institute C.V.

by May 20 2012.

The What-ness of Social Media

Ethics Religion Technology Uncategorized No Comments
Robyn Henderson-Espinoza
21 April 2012
Social Media Praxis, Iliff School of Theology

“The What-ness of Social Media in 140 Characters”

Obviously, my title is a bit mis-leading. I will not attempt to digest social media in 140 characters. If I did, it would be this: Social media, as a relational practice, is the beginning of our ability to truly relate, which is always mediated by virtual differences.

What do I mean by social media being a relational practice?

Let me answer this question by situating myself in the discourse. I am an Ethicist. I like to think about our moral imagination, moral agency and ethics; and so, when I assert the notion that social media is a relational practice, I also am suggesting that there are ethical implications here.

There has long been the question that Scholars have raised regarding the relationship between human bodies and virtual bodies. With social media, you have many bodies engaging with each other: from actual human bodies, machine bodies (like computers), and virtual bodies, like avatars and so forth. This creates a web of relating practices that indeed raises the question of the “what-ness” of social media, and especially so for today’s church.

For me, I created iRobyn. I was living in Chicago, and Twitter was all the hype. iRobyn is on Twitter as a politically queer voice, and iRobyn.com is a WordPress blog where I seek to work at the multiple intersections of religion, theology, race, queerness, sexuality, and ethics. In fact, when I have attended the American Academy of Religion, I have had conversations with people who call me iRobyn. What does this tell me about the power of creative possibilities and my own ability to create a voice, how ever virtual it is? I’ve discovered that social media is a relationship across many and multiple differences.

What might all this mean for today’s church?

What if the church embraced social media as a liturgical practice? If liturgy is the work of the people, and people of a local church began to engage with their own communities’ practices, then church might look a lot different–we might be able to live into the relational practices of our communities call to: care for the poor, feed the hungry, and so forth. Our churches might look less like a non-profit and more like a cathedral of hope, rooted in (insert here your religious practice): the call of Christ or the Divine, or what have you. What we can imagine is the ability for us all to develop a voice that lives as a social media voice.

The iRobyn voice is not necessarily the most academic voice; it is a public voice that is informed by culture, society, politics, and mediated by social media. When I blog, I write in the voice that makes most sense to me: an honestly engaged voice that is concerned about social practices that are often harming to multitude of communities. This ranges to a political voice that hopes for some political change. When I blog about theological issues or religious concerns, I write in a voice that has long-been acquainted with the practices of a local church, how ever agnostic I am these days…

What has been most helpful is that I quickly learned that for me I needed to have a multiplicity of voices. I run in circles that cut across many and multiple differences, so I needed to be able to speak to a variety of people, and sometimes my iRobyn voice merges. An example os this is when I blogged on Easter Sunday and posted an Oscar Romero quote and tied it to the murder of Trayvon Martin. It was titled: “Rise Again.” Now, I have no interest in being overly theological or affirming any sort of Resurrection of the Dead (sorry Orthodox Theologians). What was of interest to me here is to expose the intersections of theology, religion, sexuality, and race. It is in the multiple voices that iRobyn continues to exist and engage in a meaningful way.

The potential that today’s church has continues to open in multiple ways. From using social media to organize a group within a faith community or church to using Twitter to dialogue about a sermon’s content, a book study, or what have you. There seems to be no limit on what we can do with social media!

When RACE is skin deep

Ethics Race 1 Comment

The Trayvon Martin incident is what is on my mind. Particularly, the whitening of George Zimmerman. What happens when race is skin deep?

The other day I was at work and I commented on ‘how white’ my colleague is. I was referring to her skin pigmentation, and her response was: “you’re one to talk.” I am a light-skin Latina whose features wax and wane with the seasons. I often am the “victim” or recipient to a type of whitening. At that moment, my colleague indicated to me that race was but skin deep. How can that be? Is the same for George Zimmerman?

In a now corrected story, he is listed as a white hispanic, or sometimes as only hispanic. Where are the complications of race and the destabilizing nature of race discourse? They aren’t being deployed in this event that has left a black body dead. And, the Latin@ community seems to be ever so silent. Why is that? Why do we perpetuate a race politic that is skin deep? Said differently, isn’t our skin really deep? Isn’t our skin porous, our flesh exposing the depth of what race could be? I’m troubled that we stop at a skin color, and we don’t interrogate further. A black body remains dead, a white hispanic remains uncharged for this crime, and the black communities are crying out. White communities are crying out as well. What about Latin@ communities? What does their silence mean relative to this event? And when will race be more than skin deep? Or, when will we realize that race is completely skin deep and we all need a better race politic?

Chimeras, domestication of genetic engineering, and the death of Evolution

Ethics Technology No Comments

Today I listened to Radiolab on NPR.  It was a fascinating show today about chimeras!  If you have a chance, check out the episode.  The episode is “Mix & Match.”

I have some thoughts about the episode that I’d like to put down here in blogging.

As someone who tends to think about creativity and generativity, I wonder about the domestication of genetic engineering and biotechnology.  What are the implications of the intentional creation/procurement of chimeras?  I value reality of “mixing” and likely think we can’t get away from it, but what does it mean for us to “push” embryos together to make a geep? (A geep is a mixture of a sheep and a goat, and is a chimera.)  What about when the embryos of twins are pushed together in utero and the fetus that is born actually has 2 sets of DNA?  And, furthermore, what of the domestication of genetic engineering?

Are we at the end of Evolution and are, in fact, being creative with the notion of life? Are we all participating in creating life?  Today we can buy DNA dust to create living or organic things.  What does this mean for the question of “life?”  Does life have a much more broader meaning?  Have we evolved into this stage of scientific inquiry?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but found this episode to provoke lots of ethical questions that are yet lingering in my mind!  And, I am a mixed-raced person, but I am no chimera.  Or, am I?