KAJ
Kristi "Kaj" Brian (they/them or she/her)
It’s an honor to share my curiosities and determination for social justice with the members of the Collective and our partners. As a founding-member of the Collective, I bring over 20 years of teaching experience and loyalty to grassroots movements for social change. My most profound education has come from working within social movements, which started for me in Chicago in the 1990s where I became involved in various efforts to confront the violence of mass incarceration. I continued this work in Philadelphia primarily as a member of Reconstruction, Inc. and gratefully remain connected to Reconstruction Inc. through the Community-Capacity-Building Curriculum working group.
In addition to doing prison-related organizing in Philadelphia, I completed my PhD in cultural anthropology at Temple University and conducted ethnographic research on adoption activism, white privilege and the use of multiculturalist rhetoric in the promotion of transnational adoption. (Reframing Transracial Adoption: Adopted Koreans, White Parents and the Politics of Kinship, Temple University Press, 2012)
I began integrating methods of Intergroup Dialogue into my teaching based on training I received through Temple’s Center for Social Justice and Multicultural Education and the University of Michigan’s National Intergroup Dialogue Institute. In Charleston, SC I worked at the College of Charleston where I served as the Director of Diversity Education and Training and the Interim Director of the Gender and Sexuality Equity Center in addition to holding faculty positions in Women’s and Gender Studies, Environmental and Sustainability Studies, and the Anthropology and Sociology Department.
I am thrilled to have relocated to New Orleans with my partner, where I will continue to teach remotely for the College of Charleston while getting to know the social justice landscape of this magnificently resilient city! I am the mother of two feminist daughters who have taught me important lessons on courage and creativity. As a family, we are dedicated to queering the notion of kinship and embracing the sacred tenderness of the multi-species beloved communities in which we are joyfully embedded.
In addition to doing prison-related organizing in Philadelphia, I completed my PhD in cultural anthropology at Temple University and conducted ethnographic research on adoption activism, white privilege and the use of multiculturalist rhetoric in the promotion of transnational adoption. (Reframing Transracial Adoption: Adopted Koreans, White Parents and the Politics of Kinship, Temple University Press, 2012)
I began integrating methods of Intergroup Dialogue into my teaching based on training I received through Temple’s Center for Social Justice and Multicultural Education and the University of Michigan’s National Intergroup Dialogue Institute. In Charleston, SC I worked at the College of Charleston where I served as the Director of Diversity Education and Training and the Interim Director of the Gender and Sexuality Equity Center in addition to holding faculty positions in Women’s and Gender Studies, Environmental and Sustainability Studies, and the Anthropology and Sociology Department.
I am thrilled to have relocated to New Orleans with my partner, where I will continue to teach remotely for the College of Charleston while getting to know the social justice landscape of this magnificently resilient city! I am the mother of two feminist daughters who have taught me important lessons on courage and creativity. As a family, we are dedicated to queering the notion of kinship and embracing the sacred tenderness of the multi-species beloved communities in which we are joyfully embedded.