Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery

Merienda Menonita

We are starting a new series of episodes teaming up with folks from the Mennonite Coalition to help us learn about dismantling the doctrine of discovery. We start off this series with author and activist, Pueblo (Tewa) descendant, Sarah Augustine.

Sarah Augustine, who is a Pueblo (Tewa) descendant, is founder and cochair of the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Coalition and Executive Director of a dispute resolution center in central Washington State. She is also the co-founder of Suriname Indigenous Health Fund (SIHF), where she has advocated for vulnerable Indigenous Peoples since 2004. She has represented the interests of Indigenous community partners to their own governments, the Inter-American development bank, the United Nations, the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the World Health Organization, and a host of other international actors including corporate interests. She is a columnist for Anabaptist World, and co-hosts the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Podcast with Sheri Hostetler. In Washington State, where she lives, she serves in a leadership role on multiple boards and commissions to enable vulnerable peoples to speak for themselves in advocating for structural change. She and her husband, Dan Peplow, and their son live in the Yakima Valley of Washington. She is author of the book The Land Is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery(Herald Press 2021).