The Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery Podcast is designed to educate and inform people bout the lasting harmful effects of white Christian hegemony not only upon Indigenous peoples but all peoples. The podcast tells the story of how the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and domination is interwoven into settler-colonial society. As Shawnee/Lenape scholar Steven T. Newcomb highlights in his book Pagans in the Promised Land, the Doctrine of Discovery is the theological and legal justification of domination. This attempt to justify domination focuses on three things enslavement, exploitation, and extraction. With something as deeply rooted and embedded in our society as the Doctrine of Discovery it is difficult to know where to begin so this podcast begins, in the middle. We begin tracing the roots of this system of domination by starting with what does it mean to resist white Christian hegemony.
Likewise, this podcast is rooted in another story, the story of the Great Law of Peace and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s labors to create, preserve, and maintain another system of relationship not only with each other but also the natural world. Through this podcast week seek to juxtapose the Doctrine of Christian Discovery over and against other modes of being. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously wrote that “words create worlds.” This podcast seeks to interrogate not only the rhetorics of domination but also the rhetorics of liberation. We look to the past to learn the lessons of the prior generations in order to create a better world for the generations yet to come.
Please take a moment and listen to our podcast, peruse our show notes, resources, and transcripts.
The Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery podcast is one part of the larger Doctrine of Discovery Project presented by the Indigenous Values Initiative.