Rev. Joi R. Orr, PhD

Dr. Joi Orr (she/her/hers) is the Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, GA. Working at the intersection of Black religious studies, social ethics, and environmental justice her scholarship argues for African American land security and food sovereignty as a necessary component of social justice and Black liberation. Dr. Orr teaches, writes, and presents on the history of African American land dispossession, radical politics, Black utopian imaginations, and food justice. Her recent publication for the Political Theology Network’s online series, “Food Sovereignty,” uses critical theory to explore an African American movement for food sovereignty as a revolutionary Afro-Christian theological and ethical striving for collective self-determination.

Her forthcoming publication for the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, “Reclaiming the Radical Imagination: Food Sovereignty and Land Security for Black Liberation,” presents an ethnographic study of a food sovereignty collective in Baltimore, Maryland – The Black Church Food Security Network. This study encourages scholars to take seriously land dispossession as a fundamental oppression of Black Americans. By doing so, scholars concerned with the liberation of Black folk (and the souls thereof) will be able to generate revolutionary social imaginaries that refuse the confines of colonial and neoliberal imaginations.

When she isn’t writing or teaching, Dr. Orr spends her time outside. She is currently funded to enjoy the great outdoors by the Wabash Center for Learning and Teaching in Theology and Religion. Her project, “Imagining Otherwise: Ecopraxis for African American Religious Pedagogy” affords her time to engage in a variety of nature-based activities to enrich her eco-pedagogies. From camping, to hiking, visiting an apiary (beehives!), and foraging medicinal herbs, she is modeling the practices she hopes to inspire her students to engage.