Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day

by Kaitlin B. Curtice

Overview

"Readers will find abundant wisdom in this accessible guide."—Publishers Weekly

"Curtice is a fresh and intelligent voice."—Library Journal

"Shares an expansive, generous vision for how to find meaning and make a place for ourselves in an often exhausting and hostile world."—Booklist

In an era in which "resistance" has become tokenized, popular Indigenous author Kaitlin Curtice reclaims it as a basic human calling. Resistance is for every human who longs to see their neighbors' holistic flourishing. We each have a role to play in the world right where we are, and our everyday acts of resistance hold us all together.

Curtice shows that we can learn to practice embodied ways of belonging and connection to ourselves and one another through everyday practices, such as getting more in touch with our bodies, resting, and remembering our ancestors. She explores four "realms of resistance"—the personal, the communal, the ancestral, and the integral—and shows how these realms overlap and why all are needed for our liberation. Readers will be empowered to seek wholeness in whatever spheres of influence they inhabit.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781587435713
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/07/2023
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	60,048
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Kaitlin B. Curtice is an award-winning author, poet-storyteller, and public speaker. As an enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi Nation and an interspiritual advocate, she writes and speaks on the intersections of spirituality and identity, colonialism in faith communities, and the importance of interfaith relationships. Curtice is the author of Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God and has written online for Sojourners, Religion News Service, Apartment Therapy, On Being, SELF Magazine, Oprah Daily, and more. Her work has been featured on CBS and in USA Today, and she also writes at The Liminality Journal. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction
Part 1: The Personal Realm
1. What Is Resistance?
2. Art as Resistance
3. Presence as Resistance
4. Embodiment as Resistance
5. Radical Self-Love as Resistance
Part 2: The Communal Realm
6. Childcare as Resistance
7. Ethical Practices as Resistance
8. Solidarity Work as Resistance
9. Protecting the Land as Resistance
10. Kinship as Resistance
Part 3: The Ancestral Realm
11. Decolonizing as Resistance
12. Generosity as Resistance
13. Intergenerational Healing as Resistance
14. Liminality as Resistance
15. Facing History as Resistance
Part 4: The Integral Realm
16. Integration as Resistance
17. Interspiritual Relationship as Resistance
18. Prayer as Resistance
19. Dreaming as Resistance
20. Lifelong Resistance

Editorial Reviews

01/23/2023

In this motivating entry, poet Curtice (Glory Happening) encourages readers to fight against racism, patriarchy, and gender discrimination to make a more “whole” world, and to make doing so a lifelong commitment. To that end, she outlines four “realms” of resistance: personal (turning inward and asking questions); communal (making changes on a social level); ancestral (investigating one’s roots and others’); and integral (resistance that involves all parts of the self). Each realm is defined broadly, leaving plenty of room for individualized practice. Personal resistance can entail creating art to bring alive “issues we may have overlooked before” in unique ways; while communal resistance might call for interfaith organizing. As well, Curtice draws on her identity as a member of the Potawatomi Nation to explore ancestral resistance and the need to learn about the “land you currently dwell on,” including its “peoples... both past and present.” Curtice delivers her wisdom compassionately without losing sight of her activist aims, and makes a persuasive case for the power of small, incremental actions to initiate powerful change. Readers will find abundant wisdom in this accessible guide. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

02/01/2023

Curtice's (Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God) mantra of "I am a human being. I am always arriving," underlies a unique vision of resistance, one that is affirming, intensely personal, wrapped in community and history, and consistently developing. Curtice describes the intersectional realities of her life as an enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi Nation who grew up in an evangelical Christian environment. The book guides the reader through four reflective "realms of resistance"—personal, communal, ancestral, and integral—with chapters that flesh out what opposition to oppressive societal pressures can be. Curtice's story of her own arriving, of affirming and integrating larger aspects of her identity than she was originally given categories for, shows how the resistance to colonizing, racist, marginalizing narratives through bodies, words, and actions can be a journey toward spiritual wholeness. VERDICT A work of both spiritual direction and challenge toward social engagement, with welcoming, lambent prose. Curtice is a fresh and intelligent voice in the genre.—Zachariah Motts

Library Journal