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My Sibling’s Keeper
Comfort, Care, and Community in Africana Religions
Friday, April 11, 2025
9 am – 7 pm EST
with post-conference events April 12-13
ONLINE
Opening Plenary
Baba Dr. Eric Ifasola Bridges
Professor of Psychology, Clayton State University
Editor, The Wisdom of Ifa
(use code LXFANDF30 for 30% off the book)
Keynote Address
Yeye Luisah Teish
Author of Jambalaya, A Calabash of Cowries, and Jump Up!
Founder, The Jambalaya School
Featured Artist
“When your sister does your hair, you need no mirror.”
This oft-cited African proverb speaks to the soul-affirming qualities of connection, intimacy, care, and trust inherent to sibling relationships. Even beyond the limits of biological relations, the proverb illuminates a more expansive sense of kinship cultivated through the ethics and rituals of care found within Africana religious traditions. Kinship terms such as mother, father, sister, brother, and sibling are used extensively within religious communities and the spiritual families created through rituals of initiation and other ceremonies heavily supplement – and sometimes even replace – natal families. Within the broader Africana community, Black folks have long understood themselves as belonging to an extended familial network of diverse relatives like “play cousins,” “aunties,” and “uncles.” Alongside spiritual parents and siblings, diviners, medicine people, and other supplicants, these spiritual family members form a web of care, mutual aid, comfort, and encouragement that helps to sustain the community through tumultuous times as well as provide a host of co-celebrants in jubilant times.
Recognizing the importance of these sacred connections, the African and Diasporic Religious Studies Association (ADRSA) proudly presents its thirteenth conference, “My Sibling’s Keeper: Comfort, Care, and Community in Africana Religions,” which will explore the diversity of practices, rituals, and ethics of care within Africana religious communities.
Past Conferences
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