Indigeneity, Belief, and Solidarity: A Conversation with RIPAA (APARRI Working Group)
Funded by the APARRI Working Group Grant, Religion and Indigeneity in the Pacific and Asian Americas (RIPAA) centers the role of Indigeneity in API American communities, mapping the existing literature on Indigenous API religiosity across the American landscape to expand the field of AAPI Religious Studies. Through the grant, they hosted guided book readings, group discussions, and author dialogues on Zoom, and presented their findings at AAAS and APARRI 2025. Below is a conversation with RIPAA members about their experiences.
You can learn more about the APARRI Working Group Grant here and view previously awarded grants here.
- Tell us about your working group. What inspired its creation, and what are its primary goals?
Nathan Samayo (Princeton Theological Seminary): The creation of our working group was inspired by a series of questions, specifically around the concept of “Indigeneity,” that we saw being unaddressed in AAPI Religious Studies:
First, what is “Indigeneity” in Asian and Pacific Islander (API) communities, and, what does it mean to be Indigenous API in the American landscape? For this question, we sought to understand how “Indigeneity” is conceptualized and operates as an identity category among API American communities, religious practitioners, and scholars. It is a nuanced identity category with varying meanings across geographic, temporal, and ethnic contexts, so we sought to understand how “Indigenous” discourse functioned and diverged across academic inquiry, national and international law, and community formation.
Second, can we call Indigenous API epistemological and cosmological practice and belief, ‘religion?’ Religious Studies scholars have demonstrated how the category of “religion” associated “civilized societies” with Europeanness, Christianity, and the “secular,” which historically served to portray non-Western societies as “primitive” and “backward,” legitimizing colonialism and slavery. Given this colonial legacy, we sought to understand how Indigenous API communities navigated the category of religion, and under what circumstances do they deploy, utilize, assimilate to, or resist the term, “religion?” This project ultimately explored how “religion” is conceptualized, operates, and is contested by API communities, religious practitioners and scholars in relation to Indigenous cultural, epistemological, and cosmological belief and practice.
Lastly, how can research on Indigenous API religiosity mobilize scholars, practitioners, and activists to build solidarity networks and organize around decolonization? This guided our working group project which sought to map the existing literature and public discourses on Indigenous Asian- and Pacific Islander- identity, religion and spirituality across the American landscape to expand the field of AAPI Religious Studies. Our conversations focused on issues surrounding ecology, nationalism, sovereignty, mobility, and systems of care, and how Asian- Pacific Islander- American communities relate to, navigate, and organize themselves around different social and environmental conditions, structural oppressions, and political commitments. While academic research on API religions largely centers East Asian American evangelical history and experience, our project aims to increase awareness of existing literature and public discourse on Indigenous API religiosity and encourage research and mobilization for the decolonization of API communities. With that, we wanted to foster relationships between (a) Indigenous API religious practitioners and scholars, and (b) scholars in proximate fields (including Religious Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Indigenous studies) through hosting facilitated discussions on the social and political commitments of Indigenous API communities in the American landscape. In doing so, we will build solidarity networks beyond academia by collectively imagining how to address ongoing struggles among AAPI communities including decolonization, racism, assimilation, dismembered histories, and experiences of shame and ostracism for practicing Indigenous religions.
- What has your experience working as a group together looked like so far? What has been the most surprising or fulfilling aspect of your working group experience?
Kai Ngu (University of Michigan): So far it’s been a great experience because we all are used to being the “responsible” ones, and we are willing to help each other out when we are in a fix. We all trust and rely on each other. More than anything, we appreciate the ways in which we can relate to each other intellectually, spiritually, professionally, and politically along multiple dimensions. It’s a special space or “vibe” to have, especially in academia.
- How do you see your work contributing to the broader landscape of scholarship on APA religions?
Quincy Yangh (UC Santa Cruz): The scholarship on APA religions has been a formative space for each of us to think through our broader research and intellectual interests. That said, our work contributes by exploring underlying or understudied areas of this scholarship and identifying potential new directions. For instance, we examined minor religions such as shamanism in the APA community, placed APA religious scholarship in conversation with other regions of the world (Southeast Asia), and centered Indigenous experiences and expertise on religion from the Pacific Islands in their own right, beyond the usual scope of APA studies). As with many other intellectual endeavors, our work has only led to more questions. This is only the beginning for us.
- How has support from APARRI helped contribute to your work?
Melissa Borja (University of Michigan): The most important thing that APARRI has provided us is a vibrant scholarly community that has developed and supported this project. It was at an APARRI gathering where the members of this team first met each other and discovered that we shared a curiosity about the same themes and questions. As we’ve carried out this project, members of the broader APARRI community have continued to be involved in our work, joining us for author book talks and participating in thought-provoking discussions at conferences. Ultimately, the best research is supported first and foremost by people–people who think and dream together, people who care about one another, and people who invest in each other. The people we’ve known through APARRI have been the heart of this project.