Dr. Ana-Maurine Lara’s Queer Freedom: Black Sovereignty is a poetic ethnography of queer, Black, and Indigenous people and spiritual practices in the Dominican Republic. These entanglements offer a complex understanding of Caribbean Black, Indigenous, and queer communities. Lara argues for and uncovers pathways to Queer: Black decolonization and what it means to be free, particularly for Black, Indigenous, and queer people.
Although this is not your average ethnography, at least in its presentation, the author interviews activists in different communities and mostly at the intersections of two or more marginalized communities. She argues “we” are not free and that freedom is more spiritual and sacred than necessarily legally prescribed. Her focus on Black and Queer people allowed for a historical and spiritual understanding of Christian colonialism and even capitalism. Also, I enjoyed how her methodology sought to challenge the traditional anthropological research methods by including herself in the accounts, relying on mythological accounts, storytelling, alongside the traditional interviews regarding beliefs. At times, her poetic style and abstract framing made the reading difficult to follow, however, once you understand this style it definitely broadens your mindset on how to present an anthropological or an academic article, in general.