Kiley's Lineage Statement

My work is not mine alone; it is part of a long lineage of care, resistance, and radical imagination. I follow in the footsteps of visionaries who believed there is dignity in suffering and power in community care.

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Helping is in my blood. My mother's ancestors are rooted in Midcoast Maine where community care is the way of life. Resistance is in my blood. My father’s parents were immigrants with a direct connection to the anti-fascist German resistance and Irish radicals. Their struggles for liberation and sovereignty continue to shape me.

 

I live and work on the unceded territory of the Wabanaki Confederation. I stand in solidarity with Indigenous peoples as a member of the Wabanaki Alliance, advocating for tribal sovereignty, land rights, and the dismantling of colonial systems that continue to cause harm.

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I am indebted to the intersectional feminists and extraordinary Black women whose scholarship, activism, and leadership have shaped my understanding of justice, care, and liberation. I would not be here without the LGBTQ+ liberationists who risked everything, who refused to be erased, who taught the world that queerness is not a deviation but a sacred, necessary force of change. Their courage, defiance, and joy in the face of oppression remind me that our liberation is bound together. I recognize that all systems of oppression are interconnected and that true justice must be transformative, anti-racist, and rooted in collective care.

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I recognize the mental health and disability justice movements that have long challenged the medicalization and criminalization of distress, advocating instead for autonomy and human rights. I acknowledge the influence of the Wildflower Alliance’s Alternatives to Suicide approach, which reframes suicide not as pathology but as an experience worthy of exploration, understanding, and presence. I honor the caregivers, midwives, death doulas, palliative care pioneers, and spiritual companions who teach us the art of holding space for suffering without trying to control it.

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My work is also shaped by those I have served and walked beside; the children in the child welfare system, the incarcerated individuals seeking dignity in dehumanizing spaces, the elders navigating their final transitions, and those who have felt trapped by life but afraid to speak of death. Their stories, resilience, and grief have given context to my own experiences of harm and shaped the way I move through the world.

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I practice the nature-based traditions of my ancestors, finding wisdom in the land, the cycles of the earth, and the rituals of elders and community healers.​ I hope my work will inspire others to continue these traditions that honor both the weight of suffering and the possibility of transformation.