2022 HTI Book Prize Winner

Centering Hope as a Sustainable Decolonial Practice:

Esperanza en Practica

Yara Gonzalez Justiniano

Where is the hope? What does it look like? Is the Christian church providing a hope that materializes in the grounding of people’s thriving? These questions posed the catalysts of this work where the author sets up a journey that parses the definition of hope within Christian theology as an ontological category of the human experience. Through ethnographic research and ecclesial study of diverse congregations in Puerto Rico the work moves from an articulation of context, hope, practice, and future to reveal its aim of liberation through a hope that can be sustainable in time and space. She analyzes the operations of political systems that suppress hope in the island. Weaving the theme of a theology of hope, with the fields of ecclesiology, memory studies, postcolonial and decolonial theory, liberation theology, and the study of social movements she builds a model that puts hope at the center of socio-economic practices and moves toward a recipe for a hope that is sustainable in practice.

“González-Justiniano gives us a robust lived hope that faces into the structures and forces that would have us despair into spirals of hopelessness. Drawing on the rich resources found in of the struggles of the people of Puerto Rico, she envisions a new future that rests in a sustainable, eschatological hope. This is a hope-full and hope-filled guide to practices that will lead us into a vibrant future and more humane now.”
-Emilie M. Townes, Vanderbilt University

“This is an excellent contribution to several important theological themes: 1) it delivers a renewing reading and interpretation of the diverse understandings of liberation theology; 2) it brings to the literary and academic front the theme of hope, as both the source and goal of integral Christian faith; 3) as a person that recognizes Puerto Rico as her homeland, a Caribbean island that has been described by a foremost juridical scholar as “the oldest colony of the world”, Yara González-Justiniano deals with the complex coloniality of her motherland. I strongly recommend to pay careful attention to this admirable book.”
-Luis N. Rivera-Pagán, Princeton Theological Seminary

Past Book Prize Winners