Slippery Relationality, Queer Buddhisms, and Liberatory Praxis

Abstract: My presentation will theorize Queer of Color engagement with Buddhist spiritualities as decolonial work, attending to spiritual experiences in the United States. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research and on critical theory, I will conceptualize “slippery relationality” as an analytic and as a mode of praxis that refers to the ways in which Queer of Color practitioners of Buddhism traverse normative boundaries of affiliation, cultivate healing, and reckon with colonial violence. My development of slippery relationality engages with fields of inquiry as wide-ranging as queer studies and ecocritical theory, and ultimately raises questions about its role in sustaining liberatory politics.

Presenter bio: Samir Ravi (he/they) is a trans independent scholar at Sacred Heart Preparatory in California whose research traverses queer theory, intellectual history, and education studies. They are an ardent advocate for critical racial literacy in K-12 schools and lead an initiative called the Healing Literacies Project.

Affiliation: Sacred Heart Preparatory