Theory on the Ground: Ethnography, Religio-Racial Study, and the Spiritual Work of Building Otherwise

Abstract “We should be able to live and thrive, not just survive.” With these words, the Black feminist leaders of Women With A Vision (WWAV) in New Orleans refuse the religious and racist terror of post-Hurricane Katrina recovery—and theorize beyond the lethal logics that set their organizing home ablaze in a still-uninvestigated arson attack. This article approaches WWAV’s gauntlet as “theory on the ground”: theory developed in the midst of lived struggle, which carries forward the enduring resistant visions of generations past, and grows them in and through the geographies of the present, towards new and more livable futures. Drawing inspiration from Judith Weisenfeld’s study of religio-racial movements in New World A-Coming, this ethnography moves on the ground and in step with my comrades at WWAV to show how the spiritual work of building otherwise can transform both what we write (the content and theory of our scholarship) and how we write it (the methods and ethics of its undertaking). Centering WWAV’s world-building theory, learning from it, moving with it: this is essential decolonial academic praxis, which comes from and flows through a commitment to ending white supremacy and being an accomplice to Black liberation. In offering “theory on the ground” as both a model and an intervention, this article shows how ethnographers of religion, as well as those who use our tools and our texts, might study differently to build our field and our world otherwise.