Though many missionaries, priests and theologians implicated in European colonial activities leave a record of astounding dehumanization, not all colonial-era Christian theological accounts failed to speak out against the grave anti-Indigenous violence and ecological crises perpetrated by the Conquistadores in Abya Yala (Latin America). Bartolomé de las Casas (1474/84-1566) advocated for the human rights of Indigenous peoples and wrote about the need to set the Indigenous populations free from slavery. In this summer gathering of our study circle "Praxis of Social Imaginaries", we will together investigate the account of Casas.

At first a willing participant in the Spanish colonial encomienda system, through which the Spanish government enforced a politics of colonial land-grabbing and slave-holding, Casas announced in 1514 that he was returning his Indigenous slaves and land to the governor, returning to Spain in 1515 to argue for the abolition of the encomienda system. Initially, Las Casas suggested a plan of "sustainable colonisation", in which the encomienda would be abolished and Indians would be congregated into self-governing townships to become tribute-paying vassals of the king. He still suggested that the loss of Indigenous labor for the colonists could be replaced by allowing importation of African slaves. His engagement with colonial activities expanded and continued, while his budding views on Indigenous rights took shape over the decades leading up to the 1550-1551 Valladolid debate, in which Casas argued Indigenous Americans deserved the same rights as the colonizers. A number of scholars and priests opposed his view, most notably the humanist scholar Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, whose argument ignored Spanish colonial brutality, pointing instead to storied Indigenous sacrificial practices and cannibalism as justification for universal oppression of Indigenous peoples.

In this symposium, we will be reading his Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias - A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies,  which he wrote in 1542. This work would be an important basis for Casas's approach to the Valladolid debate, as within it, Casas laid out a description of colonial brutality that undermined any argument which sought to contrast Spanish "civilized Christianity" from the claimed "primitive violence" of Indigenous Americans.

The Spanish version of the text.
English audiobook version of the text.
Project Gutenberg online versions of the text (in English).

To learn more about our transdisciplinary approach and approach to Indigenous-centered research ethics, please see the section “About Our Study Circle” below. 

The precise schedule of our summer 2024 session of "Praxis of Social Imaginaries" is forthcoming. 

A typical day in the summer session

• 07:30–9:00 Breakfast
• 08:15–9:00 Morning Exercise
• 9:00–10.30 Study circle activities
• 10.30–10.45 Fika/Coffee
• 10.45–12.15 Study circle activities
• 12.15–13.45 Lunch
• 13.45–15.15 Study circle activities
• 15.15–15.30 Fika/Coffee
• 15.30–17.00 Keynote/NSU workshops, assemblies, meetings and discussion
• 18.00–19.30 Dinner
• From 19.30 Cultural Program

The full CfP can be found here, and the general summer session program can be found here.
 

About our Study Circle

The Nordic Summer University study circle Praxis of Social Imaginaries: Cosmologies, Othering and Liminality invite all who are interested in joining our group to investigate the praxis of reading together, the praxis of listening and the praxis of telling stories. We welcome applications from researchers, scientists, and artists, as well as students at bachelor, master, or doctoral levels. As a community investigating historical and living cosmologies, we are welcoming to Indigenous as well as artistic researchers (and others) who engage with spiritual practices. Our study circle is open to people of all faiths.

About Our Approach to Transdisciplinary Research

In transdisciplinary research scholars create collaborations with artists and activists in ways in which all are equal partners in a joint endeavor to study and change complex problems. In interdisciplinary research, scholars come together with researchers from other fields than their own, in order to establish collaborations where complex phenomena can be approached from various angles at the same time. Both trans- and inter-disciplinary research requires time and in-depth work in order to become truly fruitful. This study circle wants to provide room for these kinds of processes. The central method toward that end is the reading of medieval traveling accounts. We follow European theological elites as they and their learned scholarly communities encounter “Others” on their borders as well as within their lands. We will also be studying the Indigenous epistemologies, relationships to lands, nature and cultures, and social change.

About Our Incorporation of Indigenous-centered Research Protocols

In alliance with the ethical guidelines of Indigenous research this study circle is guided by the principals of Respect, Responsibility, Reciprocity and Consent that are formulated in the imagineNATIVE document ON-SCREEN PROTOCOLS & PATHWAYS: A Media Production Guide to Working with First Nations, Métis and Inuit Communities, Cultures, Concepts and Stories (2019) as well as the OFELAS - The Pathfinder Guidelines for Responsible Filmmaking with Sámi Culture and People (2021) by The Sámi Film & Culture Advisory Board. In the latter it is specifically articulated that culture, aesthetics, music, language, stories, histories and traditional cultural expressions are not things that can be the personal property of individual people nor given away as open resources. Rather, stories, languages, people, connection to space and place as well as specific crafts or arts are all interconnected and belong to a community which also includes ancestors and non-human kin (both spirits and animals). One of the aims of this study circle is thus to explore how we can approach historical documents and transdisciplinary research that respects Indigenous epistemological practices and wherein traditional forms of seeking knowledge are given space, time and resources.

The reading material at the center of our work is filled with depictions of cultures, peoples, lands and religious, artistic, culinary and sacred practices from times and places different from our own. Questions we envision will come up during the sessions are: What happens when we practice standing, sensing and listening with another in our explorations? What can we learn from encountering worldviews and scientific perspectives different from our own? What are the various media through which we can engage with texts and stories written hundreds of years before our time? What do we do if and when we find passages that are disturbing to us? How do we remain ethically grounded in practices that open for dialogue and critical scrutiny yet do not shut down or close off the possibilities of learning from what is uncomfortable? And how do we do all of this together with people from various different fields of study and cultural backgrounds that also have their own perspectives and contributions to how we can learn and explore together? These are some of the thematic questions we will pursue through-out this study cycle.

Ongoing research

In parallel with the different symposia of this study circle ethnographic fieldwork and artistic research is happening within the project Praxis of Social Imaginaries - a Theo-artistic Intervention for Transdisciplinary Research. The aim of that study is to follow and examine the processes of trans-disciplinary research that arise from the circle meetings as well as investigate the texts through transdisciplinary methods of engagement. Participation in the events of the study circle does not require participation in the ongoing research. However, due to GDPR regulations we want all the participants to be aware that research is conducted in collaboration with these events. We will thus also ask all participants to sign agreements on data collection. For those that are further interested in being collaborators in the ongoing investigation on trans-disciplinary research processes, informed consent agreements will be part of the procedures.

Financial support

We want to Thank Otto A. Malm foundation, Nordplus Gustaf Packalén Minnesfond and Åbo Akademi University Foundation for supporting the research and events of this study circle.

Co-Coordinators

Lindsey Ann Drury
Postdoctoral Researcher, Dance Studies
Institute für Theaterwissenschaft, Freire Universität, Berlin
Doctor in Philosophy, "Text and Event in Early Modern Europe" Erasmus Mundus Consortium PhD Programme

Laura Hellsten
Post-doctoral fellow at the Polin Institute at Åbo Akademi.
Doctor in Theology at Åbo Akademi University, Finland.
Previous research with art and science communication see: Avtryck i Det Okända - Forcing the Impossible project.