“Some Decks May Be Stacked against Us but This Deck Is Ours”: Justice-Centered Tarot in and against the New Age

This chapter examines the upswell of independently produced tarot decks created by and for marginalized people. Through the lens of media studies and intersectional feminist studies, this chapter elucidates how contemporary justice-centered decks and their corresponding discourses (1) critique tarot tradition through the creation of culturally accessible decks, (2) frame tarot as self-care through a healing justice framework, and (3) engage tarot as an emergent strategy for activating political imaginaries in service of conjuring a just future. This analysis is situated in a genealogical account of justice-centered tarot's emergence, providing an overview of tarot's imbrication in the neoliberal self-help New Age industry and the politicization of tarot in decks born of 1980s American feminism.