Empires rise and expand by taking lands and resources and by enslaving the bodies and minds of people. Even in this modern era, the territories, geographies, and peoples of a number of lands continue to be divided, occupied, harvested, and marketed. The legacy of slavery and the scapegoating of people persists in many lands, and religious institutions have been co-opted to own land, to gather people, to define proper behavior, to mete out salvation, and to be silent. The contributors to People and Land, writing from under the shadows of various empires-from and in between Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Caribbean, and Oceania-refuse to be silent. They give voice to multiple causes: to assess and transform the usual business of theology and hermeneutics; to expose and challenge the logics and delusions of coloniality; to tally and demand restitution of stolen, commodified and capitalized lands; to account for the capitalizing (touristy) and forced movements of people; and to scripturalize the undeniable ecological crises and our responsibilities to the whole life system (watershed). This book is a protest against the claims of political and religious empires over land, people, earth, minds, and the future.
Foreword Collin Cowan Preface 1. The land has colours Jione Havea PROMISES AND LOSSES 2. Lost Paradises: Tracing the Imperial Contours of Modern Tourism Upon Lands and People Steed Vernyl Davidson 3. When No Land on Earth is "Promised Land": Empire and Forced Migrants Gemma Tulud Cruz 4. Empty Land: Righteous Theology, Sneaky Coloniality Santiago Slabodsky 5. Religious Diversity, Political Conflict, and the Spirituality of Liberation Mitri Raheb 6. A Theology of Land and its Covenant Responsibility Sifiso Mpofu DISPOSSESSIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 7. Landed Churches, Landless People Kuzipa Nalwamba 8. Empire 2.0: Land Matters in Jamaica and the Caribbean Garnett Roper 9. Delusions of Empire: On People and Land in Oceania Nasili Vaka'uta 10. People, Land and Empire in Asia: Geopolitics, Theological Imaginations and Islands of Peace Jude Lal Fernando 11. Colonization of the Watersheds and the Green Politics of Hagar George Zachariah 12. Lost Land: Visualizing Deforestation and Eschatology in the Apocalypse of John and the Column of Trajan in Rome Barbara Rossing
