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Pedagogical Experience on Migration, Forced Displacement, and Border Realities: A Texas-Mexico Border Perspective
Proposal abstract :
This pedagogical seminar will be a travel seminar to the U.S.-Mexico border. Its aim will be to provide an educational immersion experience for seminary faculty and staff. The seminar will shape pedagogy and produce materials for Austin Seminary, increasing cultural competency. Materials can provide resources and tools for other institutions and organizations who seek to enhance their cultural competence and who seek to shape their curriculum by borderlands history and spiritualities.
Learning Abstract :
The Texas-Mexico borderlands is a dynamic space with unique cultural expressions, spiritual depth, and social struggles. It is a space that embodies the complex intersections of identity, spirituality, and resistance in the face of the separation wall and in the face of the grueling journey many immigrants are forced to make, including those that die in its deserts or drown in the Rio Grande. Austin Seminary seeks to be a theological institution that embodies and teaches the realities of the borderlands, long committed to the dynamic spiritual and theological formation of seminary students, forming faith leaders who are rooted in justice for those on the margins of society. Austin Seminary has been in discernment about its own formation and has determined that it is critical for it to have its context as a seminary on the borderlands to shape its evolving identity, including changes to its curricula, an evolution of its culture, and growth of its Latine/x student demographic. It is geographically situated close to the El Paso and Ciudad Juarez border in west Texas and to the Rio Grande Valley on the southern Texas-Mexico border. Even more, it is this border that has shaped the history, culture, demographics, and spiritualties of Texas, particularly its borderlands.
This pedagogical seminar will be a travel seminar to the U.S.-Mexico border. Its aim will be to provide an educational immersion experience for seminary faculty and staff. The seminar will shape pedagogy and produce materials for Austin Seminary, increasing cultural competency. Materials can provide resources and tools for other institutions and organizations who seek to enhance their cultural competence and who seek to shape their curriculum by borderlands history and spiritualities.
Learning Abstract :
The Texas-Mexico borderlands is a dynamic space with unique cultural expressions, spiritual depth, and social struggles. It is a space that embodies the complex intersections of identity, spirituality, and resistance in the face of the separation wall and in the face of the grueling journey many immigrants are forced to make, including those that die in its deserts or drown in the Rio Grande. Austin Seminary seeks to be a theological institution that embodies and teaches the realities of the borderlands, long committed to the dynamic spiritual and theological formation of seminary students, forming faith leaders who are rooted in justice for those on the margins of society. Austin Seminary has been in discernment about its own formation and has determined that it is critical for it to have its context as a seminary on the borderlands to shape its evolving identity, including changes to its curricula, an evolution of its culture, and growth of its Latine/x student demographic. It is geographically situated close to the El Paso and Ciudad Juarez border in west Texas and to the Rio Grande Valley on the southern Texas-Mexico border. Even more, it is this border that has shaped the history, culture, demographics, and spiritualties of Texas, particularly its borderlands.