Xicana Tiahui Podcast

In this episode Ashley and Leo, tenant organizers from Union de Vecinos-Eastside Local of the LA Tenants Union discuss how wellness is embedded in housing justice work.

 

To learn more about their work, follow @uniondevecinos on Instagram

In this special interlude episode, we offer our naguala shape-shifting reflections on Chapter 4, “Semiotics and the Language of Revolution." 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.

In this episode, hosted on the Xicana Tiahui podcast platform, the Sandovalian Semillero Collective delves into Chapter 4 of Methodology of the Oppressed. Here, they unpack how Chela Sandoval engages the work of Martinican psychiatrist Frantz Fanon and French cultural theorist Roland Barthes, extending a conversation about semiotics (the study of signs), the conditions to link language with revolution. In particular, the collective tackles what Sandoval calls "the methodology of emancipation" and its five technologies of power: semiotics, deconstruction, meta-ideologizing, democratics, and the differential movement of consciousness. These theoretical threads of social praxis for the concrete practice enacting the social movement's differential mode come alive. The practitioner of the methodology of emancipation becomes, in the process, the one to enable this "move of energy" for the possibilities to struggle against dominant ideology.

 

Decolonizing Epistemologies: Conversation with Latinx Philosophers (UC Berkeley Latinx Research Center): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCV6Veg-eYo&ab_channel=LatinxResearchCenter

In this special interlude episode, we offer our naguala shape-shifting reflections on Chapter 3, “On Cultural Studies: The Apartheid of Theoretical Domains."  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.

Natalia and Gustavo from Xicana Tiahui hang out with Dr. Silvia Soto, professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies and Native American Studies at Sonoma State University. Platicamos about her recently published book “Carocoleando Among Worlds: Reconstructing Maya Worldviews in Chiapas.” We learn about her journey in the Zapatista struggle and her literary movida to bridge Maya Literature, Zapatista thought, and Chicanx and Native Studies. Get her book through the University of Arizona Press or your local library. 

In this episode, hosted on the Xicana Tiahui podcast platform, the Sandovalian Semillero Collective delves into Chapter 3 of Methodology of the Oppressed, discussing disciplinary divides in knowledge, what Chela Sandoval calls "the apartheid of theoretical domains." The collective considers Sandoval's notion of power and how it operates between the horizontal and vertical axes, suggesting how we must attune ourselves to both, not choosing either/or. By focusing on one's position, the collective also thinks how the personal is political.

In this special interlude episode, we offer our naguala shape shifting reflections on Chapter 2, “U.S. Third World Feminism: Differential Social Movement I”.  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.

Tune into this episode of the Wellness Segment where Kim interviews Carla, creator of Ixoq Arte.

 

To learn more or get in touch with Carla of Ixoq Arte, visit: ixoqarte.com

or follow on IG: ixoq_arte

 

Interested in being on the wellness segment? Direct message us on IG at: xicana_tiahui or reach out to Kim directly at: @kimethyst

In this episode, hosted on the Xicana Tiahui podcast platform, the Sandovalian Semillero Collective delves into Chapter 2 of Methodology of the Oppressed, where they unpack Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology and the ways Chela Sandoval extends his theory to consider how people can break with and rupture hegemonic ideologies. The collective moves through two of the main threads of the chapter, first engaging with the critique of hegemonic white feminism, and second, thinking through the possibilities and limits of differential consciousness in the U.S. third world feminist movement and our current context.

In this special episode, the podcasters from the Sandovalian Semillero Collective share their SWAPA responses based on "Chapter 1: Fredric Jameson" 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.