Elisha Chi

Elisha Chi is a registered descendent of the Inupiaq of the Bering Straits region and Irish/British Catholics, raised on Duwamish lands in the anti-feminist conservative traditionalist Catholic community of Seattle. Currently a PhD candidate working in the Lenapehoking (Philadelphia) at the intersection of theology/religious studies, ethics, and Indigenous studies, her current project is titled Stories and Silence: Issues and Methods Supporting the Decolonization of the Catholic Church. In this work, Elisha considers the ways that story illustrates the political theologies of interactions between Indigenous communities, the Catholic Church, and the theology/religious studies academy. Ultimately, her work threads together anticolonialism, political theology, theology/religious studies, and materiality in order to articulate anticolonial academic methods and pedagogical practices that pursue Indigenous land return.