Writings and projects

 Abstract

This dissertation unapologetically centers the re-animation of Chingonisma from the standpoint of an Indigenous-Chicana, settler descendant in the United States, confronting oppression perpetuated by the Ivory Tower. Guided by the Mexica cosmology of the Nahui Ollin, each sacred energy aligns with a qualitative method: Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror) aligns with Reflexivity, Quetzalcoatl (Precious Knowledge) with Standpoint Theory, Huitzilopochtli (Will and Action) with Positionality, and Xipe Totec (Transformation) with Decolonial Autoethnography. Additional frameworks, the Nopal Phases and the Table of Power, enrich the analysis and challenge epistemicide.

Through ceremonial storywork, personal archives, and relational dialogues, the research addresses two questions: (1) What supported the path toward liberation as a queer Indigenous-Chicana educator and scholar? (2) What disrupted or challenged that path? The methodology confronts Spirit Murder by prioritizing relational accountability, spirit restoration, and cultural sovereignty. Tracing the etymology of chingar and critiquing Octavio Paz’s patriarchal conceptualization of La Chingada, this work charts the evolution toward Chingona and ultimately Chingonisma. Chingonisma unsettles respectability politics by reconceptualizing the tongue as a phallus, symbolizing radical agency, voice, creativity, and ancestral memory carried through womb and blood lineage. “Con el nopal en la frente” becomes a manifestation of Chingonisma, illuminating ancestral memory.

These practices flourish within The Elsewheres, intentionally exclusive micro-spaces cultivated beyond the violent gaze of the Ivory Tower, expanding pathways toward Chicana/x and Xicana/x feminist epistemologies, transformative decolonial praxis, and sustainable Indigenous futurities.

Keywords: Chingonisma, Ivory Tower, Nahui Ollin, Spirit Restoration, Indigenous Elsewheres

This study examines the historical and contemporary power structures in U.S. Parks and Protected Areas (PPAs) and proposes a framework for transitioning toward more equitable management practices that are centered on Indigenous leadership and sovereignty. As an authorship team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, we critique the colonial infrastructure that has maintained settler power over Indigenous lands and waters by employing decolonial and feminist methodologies and adapting an Indigenous evaluation model to understand PPA management power paradigms along a spectrum from historic to contemporary and Indigenous futurity-based management. We highlight that despite recent federal policies that promote collaborative management, significant barriers persist for Tribal Nations to gain powers that recognize their self-determination and sovereignty in PPA management. 

Such barriers include the prioritization of western conservation paradigms, U.S. policies, marginalization of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, and limited recognition of Tribal Nations as sovereign rightsholders. We introduce a model for understanding and navigating a spectrum of power dynamics in PPA management and categorize sequential stages: “To” and “For,” maintaining colonial dominance through structural and procedural powers and cultures; “With” and “Beside,” the nexus of collaborative and co-equity-based management paradigms; and “By” and “As,” Indigenous self-determination over the aims, governance, and stewardship of PPAs. Using a participatory working group approach, we developed desired conditions and indicators to assist PPA managers and Tribal entities in using the model to assess current practices and guide transitions toward moving from “With” to “Beside” paradigms and as pathways that will lead to Indigenous futurities, which honor self-determination and sovereignty of Tribal Nations. This research contributes to ongoing discussions on decolonizing conservation and land management practices and provides practical frameworks for PPA managers and Tribal Nations to create paradigmatic and more equity- and rights-based management praxes.

Established by award-winning author and MacArthur Genius Jacqueline Woodson, the Baldwin-Emerson Elders Project captures and celebrates untold and underrepresented stories of activists, storytellers, and community builders who have witnessed and shaped great change in American public life. 

Spanning over 230 oral history interviews and 1,000 personal mementos, the Elders Project was produced by Incite Institute at Columbia University—home to the Columbia Center for Oral History Research—in partnership with Woodson’s nonprofit, Baldwin for the Arts, between 2022 and 2024.

Focusing on ten regions, the project examines topics from the emergence of social justice movements, to gender and diversity politics, to housing inequality and displacement, stories of protest, rebuilding, love, and liberation.

This collection aims to fill in the deep gaps of vital contributions that have been erased from the sexuality field, illuminating the historical and current work, strategies, solutions, and thoughts from sexologists that have been excluded until now.　

Historically, the US sexuality field has not included the experiences and wisdom of racialized sexologists, educators, therapists, or professionals. Instead, sexuality professionals have been trained using a color-free narrative that does an injustice by excluding their work as well as failing to offer a fuller examination of how they have expanded the field and held it accountable. The result of this wholesale erasure is that today many sexuality professionals understand these contributions as extra or tangential, and not part of the full vision and history of the field of sexology. Highlighting the voices and experiences of those who have been racialized and thus excluded, isolated, erased, and yet have still emerged as vital contributors to the North American sexuality field, this text offers a significant shift in the way we learn and understand sexuality, one that is expansive and committed to liberation, healing, equity, and justice. Divided into three sections addressing safety, movement, and oral narratives, the contributors offer insightful and provoking chapters that discuss reproductive justice, LGBTQ themes, racial and social justice, and gender, and disability justice, demonstrating how these sexologists have been leaders, past and present, in change and progression.

This futuristic textbook includes correction, engaged reading, and lesson plans which offers community workers and trainers an opportunity to use the text in their non-traditional learning environments. Creating a path forward that many believed was impossible, this accessible book is for all who work in and around sexuality. It welcomes inquiry and celebrates our humanity for the worlds we are building now and for the future.

Payan Hazelwood, S. (2023). Yoga: A liberatory praxis. In B. I. Laureano (Ed.), The people’s book of human sexuality: Expanding the sexology archive (Chapter 7). Taylor & Francis.

U.S. Federal Land Management Areas (FLMAs) are grounded in settler colonialism, including Indigenous land dispossessions and violations of Tribal treaties. This critical thought-piece is written by Indigenous scholars to reimagine FLMAs (especially recreation areas) through decolonization and the Indigenous value systems embedded within the “four Rs”: relationship, responsibility, reciprocity, and redistribution. We reweave conceptions about parks and protected areas, reimagine park management, and reconfigure management foci to reflect Indigenous value systems shared by Indigenous peoples. We emphasize a need for Tribal comanagement of FLMAs, the inclusion of Tribal land management practices across ecosystems, and the restoration of Indigenous land use and management rights. Land and recreation managers can use this paper to 1) decolonize park management practices, 2) understand how Indigenous value systems can inform park management foci, and 3) build a decolonized and reciprocal relationship with Tribes and their ancestral landscapes.