Volume 27, Issue 1/2, Fall 2021
Decolonizing Spiritualities
Mark Lewis Taylor
Pages 39-66
https://doi.org/10.5840/clrjames2021112986
Earth Politics of the Spiritual Ground
Toward Decolonizing Imperio-Coloniality¡¯s Torture State
Amid the coloniality of power, earth politics is a political spirituality. It fosters decolonizing practices that create what Colombian anthropologist Alb¨¢n Achinte terms ¡°re-existence¡±¡ªa ¡°redefining and re-signifying of life in conditions of dignity.¡± Earth politics¡¯ spirituality can be read across the writings of Gloria Anzald¨²a, Drucilla Cornell/Stephen Seely, and Paget Henry. Earth politics, in Henry¡¯s words, is a ¡°drama of consciousness¡± with a ¡°spiritual ground,¡± a consciousness that is both ¡°vertical¡± and ¡°horizontal¡±¡ªbetter, a spherical and ambient consciousness ¡°grounding¡± an earthy awareness that is historical and poetic, local and planetary. Earth politics infused with such consciousness can become a force against even imperio-colonial practices of torture against colonized peoples. U.S. activist Sister Dianna Ortiz, embodies this counter-force of earth politics in her ¡°life after torture,¡± in her collective struggle against the neo-imperialist torture-state that is the United States.