The Spirit of Marronage

The Spirit of Marronage

Expressions of Afrikan Indigenous Self-Determination

Ping-Ann Addo, Diana J. Fox, Nana Barouda Lubafu Isieni (Cynthia Ellis-Topsey) (Eds.)

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An inspiring Maroon political, cultural and spiritual awakening is taking place across the Caribbean and Atlantic world, spanning from Belize to Suriname, Brazil to Sierra Leone. This landmark book reveals women's leadership in this underestimated transnational political movement and resurgent sacred project. Highlighting nuanced intersectional approaches, this collection of essays by leading scholars and participants in this field show how Maroons have transcended legal erasure, resisted forced removal, countered gendered violence, and stopped resource extraction, to reclaim their place as Indigenous peoples in a world-making project of liberation and steadfast self-determination.

Prof. Dr. Mimi Sheller
Worcester Polytechnic Institute

“The Spirit of Marronage” (re)presents a remarkable synergy of voices, perspectives, and positionalities, all of which are committed to the embodied praxis and politics of bridge- and movement-building for co-creating the cognitive, spiritual and material conditions for new horizons of re-existence. This book convinces readers that Maroons and the lived principles of Marronage are no longer just the inspiration for appropriated metaphors, or the focus of locally mapped ethnographies, or topics confined to the footnotes of texts probing the histories and legacies of Afrikan descendants and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Abla Yala, Améfrica. Usually presumed to be disparate, even when articulated through alliances and overlapping struggles, this instructive volume unsettles those conventions in its critical expansion of the meanings and groundings of “Maroon” and “Indigenous” as salient categories in the discourses and practices of international human rights. In its challenging reinterpretations and collaborations, this provocative book is a model for working toward the decolonization of the social relations, power dynamics, intellectual yields and practical applications of research, social analysis and knowledge creation.

Dr. Faye V. Harrison
Professor of African American Studies and Anthropology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Editor of “Decolonizing Anthropology: Moving Further toward an Anthropology for Liberation”
Author of “Outsider Within: Reworking Anthropology in the Global Age”

“This path-breaking volume brings together decades of work on Caribbean Maroon and Indigenous peoples and their communities. With special attention to women’s lives, it interrogates the contentious issues related to definitions of indigeneity, arguing for a wider, more inclusive understanding. It provides a basis for new conversations about peoples and communities which have been ignored in this region for far too long.”

Rhoda Reddock
The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus

'The Spirit of Marronage: Expressions of Afrikan Indigenous Self-Determination' chronicles the rise of the United Maroon Indigenous Peoples (UMIP), a global movement rooted in the spiritual and political legacies of Afrikan-descended Indigenous communities. Interweaving scholarly discussions, critical personal narrative, poetry, visual art, and Indigenous curricula, the book explores sovereignty through land-based relations, communal governance, and sacred practices. It documents pivotal Maroon gatherings and outlines UMIP’s six founding pillars: Kpaale (Diasporic Citizenship and Spirituality), Mbongi (Learning Together), Uhuru (Freedom and Reparations), Gayap (Sovereignty through Food, Land, and Water), Ujima (Collective Responsibility), and Livity (Living Maroon Values). Serving as both an archive for Maroons and a guide for Indigenous Peoples reclaiming culture, it calls for shifts in academic engagement toward authentic allyship—centering Indigenous knowledges to transform relationships from transactional to reciprocal, and analyses from removed to restorative. A vital resource for educators, researchers, and activists pursuing ecological and social justice.

Ping-Ann Addo is a collaborative ethnographer and Associate Professor of Anthropology at University of Massachusetts Boston. Her work focuses on material culture in Pacific and Caribbean communities, examines women’s agency, nation-building, and (im)migrant identity, and supports Indigenous survivance and reclamation. She is the author of two books, a story consultant on a film, and a trained museum educator and researcher.

Diana J. Fox is Professor of Anthropology at Bridgewater State University. She is a cultural anthropologist, decolonial feminist scholar-activist, and documentary film producer. She works to develop collaborative partnerships with social movement actors globally around women’s and Indigeous rights and liberatory praxis. She is founding editor of the online, open-access 'Journal of International Women’s Studies.'

Nana Barouda Lubafu Isieni (Cynthia Ellis-Topsey) is a Garifuna Indigenous global leader from Belize and Ambassador at Large of the Garifuna Nation. A spiritual guide and promoter of Afrikan tales, she is an activist for changing the language of economic decolonization and empowering Garifuna and other indigenous women. Founder of the Garifuna Cassava Festival, she is a mother of 5 and grandmother of 17.

Indigeneity, Indigenous sovereignty, Maroons, Maroon unity, self-determination, social movements, spirituality, UMIP (United Maroon Indigenous Peoples), decoloniality, decolonial anthropology, social movements, Indigenous rights, women’s leadership, women-led social movements