Xicana Tiahui Podcast

[SWAPA Interlude] Circle #8

In this special episode, the podcasters from the Sandovalian Semillero Collective share their SWAPA responses based on "Conclusion: Differential Manifesto, Trans-Languages, and Global Oppositional Politics" of Methodology of the Oppressed by Chela Sandoval. The SWAPA circle expresses what Sandoval calls the "naguala-witness-naguala ceremony." SWAPA is an acronym for Storytelling/Witnessing Wor(l)d-Art & Performance as Activism. It is a spiritual activist or nepantlera method in the spirit of differential social movement and consciousness from Methodology of the Oppressed. These special episodes are responses to the book and offer a practice of creative close reading and what it means to bridge worlds with others.

For scholarly references on SWAPA, here are some suggested essays:

• Alvarez Jr, Eddy Francisco. "Jotería pedagogy, SWAPA, and Sandovalian approaches to liberation." Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 39, no. 1 (2014): 215-227.
• Vasquez, Kristian E. "The Decoloniality of Feeling: On Sandovalian Praxis, Ceremony, and Emancipatory Politics in the Classroom and Beyond." Regeneración: A Xicanacimiento Studies Journal 1, no. 1 (2024): 5.

Intro & Outro song: "La calandria” by Raíces Oaxaca.

[EP8] Decolonizing the Social Imagination: Differential Social Movement Horizons

In this episode, hosted on the Xicana Tiahui podcast platform, the Sandovalian Semillero Collective delves into the conclusion of Methodology of the Oppressed. The collective offers their final synopsis of the book and reflections on the content of the entire text, as well as its relevance for today. Here, the idea of the book, on coalition, becomes a continued conversation that signals not the end but an opening. To read Sandoval's Methodology of the Oppressed today is to conjure new dialogues about what the conditions of the world are and how to imagine a world where we might be free, together.

For more on this text, see Xicana Tiahui Scribes writer Kristian E. Vasquez's new blog post on the twenty-five years of Sandoval's book: https://xicanatiahui.substack.com/p/theory-uprising?r=3abq8l

[SWAPA Interlude] Circle #7

In this special episode, the podcasters from the Sandovalian Semillero Collective share their SWAPA responses based on "Chapter 7: Revolutionary Force: Connecting Desire to Reality" of Methodology of the Oppressed by Chela Sandoval. The SWAPA circle expresses what Sandoval calls the "naguala-witness-naguala ceremony." SWAPA is an acronym for Storytelling/Witnessing Wor(l)d-Art & Performance as Activism. It is a spiritual activist or nepantlera method in the spirit of differential social movement and consciousness from Methodology of the Oppressed. These special episodes are responses to the book and offer a practice of creative close reading and what it means to bridge worlds with others.

For scholarly references on SWAPA, here are some suggested essays:

• Alvarez Jr, Eddy Francisco. "Jotería pedagogy, SWAPA, and Sandovalian approaches to liberation." Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 39, no. 1 (2014): 215-227.
• Vasquez, Kristian E. "The Decoloniality of Feeling: On Sandovalian Praxis, Ceremony, and Emancipatory Politics in the Classroom and Beyond." Regeneración: A Xicanacimiento Studies Journal 1, no. 1 (2024): 5.

Intro & Outro song: "La calandria” by Raíces Oaxaca.

[EP7] Cyber-Consciousness: Fascism, Cyborgs, and Desire in the Postmodern World

Delving into Methodology of the Oppressed, the Sandovalian Semillero Collective offers their musings on Chapter 7. As a chiasmus, the chapter returns to U.S. third world feminism, examining how this vein of thinking prompts a methodology of the oppressed. Sandoval turns to the work of Donna Haraway, science and technology feminist scholar, to outline how feminist of color through critique “womanhood” and provide new proposals for examining the desires of citizen-subjects. Harraway’s oppositional cyber-consciousness opens the possibility of the citizen-subject's desire to unravel and, through decolonial love, forge a revolutionary politics and force. The collective ruminates on Haraway’s cyborg feminism, considering its utility as a differential consciousness, and takes seriously how our desires can be reality. 

[SWAPA Interlude] Circle #6

In this special interlude episode, we offer our naguala shape-shifting reflections on Chapter 6, “Love as a Hermeneutics of Social Change, a Decolonizing Movida." From the responses to quotes across the chapter, each collective member present offers a gift of emotion produced through the process of deep listening. SWAPA is an acronym for Storytelling/Witnessing Wor(l)d-Art & Performance as Activism. It is a spiritual activist or nepantlera method in the spirit of differential social movement and consciousness from Methodology of the Oppressed. These special episodes are responses to the book and offer a practice of creative close reading and what it means to bridge worlds with others.

[EP6] Love and the Abyss: Practicing the Decolonizing Movida

In this episode, hosted on the Xicana Tiahui podcast platform, the Sandovalian Semillero Collective delves into Chapter 6 of Methodology of the Oppressed. The collective has a serious conversation about love. What exactly animates one to pursue "social justice," "liberation," or "freedom dreams" in a world where, as Sandoval puts it in her classroom, the social physics of war is the norm? To fall in love, not as a romantic or revolutionary (though these are also important), as a decolonizing movida is to take to task love as a hermeneutic. To be committed to the social movements today, against capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy, one must confront love.

Becoming the Territory, Becoming Ungovernable

In this episode, we have an extended and second conversation with a compa about the latest communiqué and zine from Re-Existir Media, titled We Are All Illegal: An Intro to Brown Anarchy. As they describe it, Re-Existir Media is "a new community info-project coming to the Inland Empire." We do a close reading of the content of the zine, elaborating on the themes of anarchy, brown insurgencies, and how to confront the question of autonomy in local geographies. Our main concern becomes the how of responding to material conditions and the ways communities struggle against capital and the state toward another world.

 

We Are All Illegal: https://reexist.noblogs.org/zines/illegal/

 

On the recent Los Angeles ICE raids:

"Revolt and Representation" | https://heatwavemag.info/blog/revrep-061625/

"Defend the LAnd" | https://spectrejournal.com/defend-the-land/

"Los Angeles, or the End of Assimilation" | https://illwill.com/los-angeles

"Fuck I.C.E. City-Wide" | https://ineditas.noblogs.org/post/2025/06/18/fuck-i-c-e-city-wide-los-angeles-goes-up/

Brown Insurgencies: We Are All Illegal

In this episode, we have a conversation with a compa about the latest communiqué and zine from Re-Existir Media, titled We Are All Illegal: An Intro to Brown Anarchy. As they describe it, Re-Existir Media is "a new community info-project coming to the Inland Empire." With a seasonal bulletin, zines, "how-to" manuals, and resources, the project aims to share with its local geography an analysis of political economy, US politics, anarchist praxis, and oppositional ideologies rooted in Latin American or brown autonomous projects. In the conversation, many topics emerge, bubbling from We Are All Illegal, determined to ask more questions without shying away from some proposals. Here, some might be inspired to think about the recent waves of ICE raids in their local geographies and developing methods to confront the Trump administration's mission for mass deportation.

 

We Are All Illegal: https://reexist.noblogs.org/zines/illegal/

 

On the recent Los Angeles ICE raids:

"Revolt and Representation" | https://heatwavemag.info/blog/revrep-061625/

"Defend the LAnd" | https://spectrejournal.com/defend-the-land/

"Los Angeles, or the End of Assimilation" | https://illwill.com/los-angeles

"Fuck I.C.E. City-Wide" | https://ineditas.noblogs.org/post/2025/06/18/fuck-i-c-e-city-wide-los-angeles-goes-up/

[SWAPA Interlude] Circle #5

In this special interlude episode, we offer our naguala shape-shifting reflections on Chapter 5, “The Rhetoric of Supremacism as Revealed by the Ethical Technology: Democratics." From the responses to quotes across the chapter, each collective member present offers a gift of emotion produced through the process of deep listening. SWAPA is an acronym for Storytelling/Witnessing Wor(l)d-Art & Performance as Activism. It is a spiritual activist or nepantlera method in the spirit of differential social movement and consciousness from Methodology of the Oppressed. These special episodes are responses to the book and offer a practice of creative close reading and what it means to bridge worlds with others.

[EP5] On the Rhetoric of Supremacism

In this episode, hosted on the Xicana Tiahui podcast platform, the Sandovalian Semillero Collective delves into Chapter 5 of Methodology of the Oppressed. The collective explores how Chela Sandoval examines dominant ideologies, as well as white consciousness, and how beings perpetuate systems of supremacy through rhetorical poses. Sandoval draws from Roland Barthes and Frantz Fanon to analyze the mechanisms that sustain oppressive power structures and to investigate “the language of supremacy.” Throughout the episode, the collective breaks down the rhetoric of supremacism and offers examples. Identifying these rhetorical poses is the first step to confronting the world and invoking the technology called democratics.