Ohitika Chade Wiya – Brave Hearted Woman: A Narrative of Recovery, Reclamation and Renewal of an Indigenous woman’s body image (original) (raw)
Related papers
Resisting body-territories - Indigenous women negotiating racism as a pandemic
Interface: A Journal for and About Social Movements, 2021
An in-depth case study of the 'Indigenous Women's Movement for Buen Vivir' in Argentina reveals how participants negotiate racism as a pandemic in their conflict-ridden everyday realities. In this multifaceted struggle, Indigenous women position themselves as 'body-territories', which links their struggles to defend territories against extractivist resource exploitation with the struggle against intersectional discrimination, racism, and the historic violation of their bodies. By highlighting an inseparable interrelation between body and nature, they radically question the Anthropocene narrative that portrays humans as having power over the planet. Instead, the Indigenous women claim a (re)construction of reciprocity with nature and other-than-human beings, as well as with humans, in short, Buen Vivir. This paper explores how the participants conceptualise body-territory through their understanding of Buen Vivir, as well as 'complementary duality', and the ways in which these notions configure both (social) relations and gender perceptions. By reclaiming Indigenous epistemologies shaped by this body/human-nature relationality, Indigenous women position themselves as anti-patriarchal rather than as feminists, framing the struggle against prevailing 'capitalist-coloniality' as one against the patriarchy. As body-territories, their resistance targets the triggers of systemic racism: capitalist, extractivist, and patriarchal exploitation, and exclusion. At the same time, it implies a struggle for transformation towards new relationalities that include other-than-human beings and nature.
Deconstructing Indigenous Feminism: A View from the Other Side
2019
The paper addresses key concepts of Indigenous feminism and the phenomenon of the female marginal Other seen in the fiction and non-fiction works presented by distinguished Canadian female authors in postmodern, racial and women’s studies. They have shared their intimate memories and personal impressions on the experience of being women surrounded by the social constraints of racism, sexism, and ethnic oppression. A contemporary Indigenous woman and her female public voice are examined through conventional postmodern and post-colonial notions of archetypal femininity, motherhood, and red womanhood stereotypes. Native understanding of the postmodern phenomenon of cultural hybridity as fragmented and fluid female identity is presented in connection with the perception of Indigenous gender roles. Indigenous feminism promotes reconceptualization and prefiguration of an ingrained vision of Aboriginal female identity. Pursuing sexual and ethnic liberation, the Indigenous woman is articula...
Theses: Masters, 2002
This thesis examines the reclamation of the 'Blak' body by Indigenous female photo-media artists. The discussion will begin with an examination of photographic representatiors of Indigenous people by the colonising culture and their construction of 'Aboriginality'. The thesis will look at the introduction of Aboriginal artists to the medium of photography and their chronological movement through the decades. This will begin with a documentary style approach in the 1960s to an intimate exploration of identity that came into prominence in the 1980s with an explosion of young urban photomedia artists, continuing into the 1990s and beyond. I will be examining the works of four contemporary female artists and the impetus behind their work. The three main artists whose works will be examined are Brenda L. Croft, Destiny Deacon and Rea; all of whom have dealt with issues of representation of the 'Blak female body, gender and reclamation of identity. The thesis will examine the works of these artists in relation to the history of representation by the dominant culture. Chapter 6 will look at a new emerging artist, Dianne Jones, who is looking at similar issues as the artists mentioned. This continuing critique of representation by Jones is testimony of the prevailing issues concerning Aboriginal representation.
Quarterly Journal of Speech , 2020
Native women and girls suffer sexual violence at the highest rate of any demographic in the United States-primarily perpetrated by non-Native assailants. In this essay, we explore how dominant Euro-American discourses regarding trauma, sexual violence, and indigenous peoples complicate this epidemic. These discourses individualize trauma, assign it an unrealistic linear timeline that presupposes a stable subject position, and ignore the experiences of women of color. Such rhetoric renders Native bodies as disposable and disguises structural oppression by blaming women for the sexual violence committed against them. Ultimately, we argue that rhetoric of survivance, which combines survival, endurance, and resistance to assert Native presence over historical absence and perceived oblivion, creates a space in which communities disproportionately affected by violence can simultaneously practice collective coping methods while also challenging dominant discourses. To advance this argument we conduct a rhetorical analysis of the illustrated handbook, What to Do When You're Raped: An ABC Handbook for Native Girls, which was produced by a Native American women's organization to address sexual violence. We explore how four central characteristics of survivance-infinitive temporality, storytelling, collective agency, and structural critique-assert Native presence and make visible the problem of sexual violence against Native women.
2002
I would like to first of all thank Tracey Moffatt for introducing me to the amazing-world of Indigenous art and culture and involving me in her work. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr Dean Chan for his support, patience and encyclopaedic knowledge. I would also like to express my gratitude to Brenda Croft for her professional support, friendship and great yarns. Thank you to my best friend Dianne Jones for creating such amazing works and with such impeccable timing, and a special thanks to all my Aboriginal students whom have stared and taught me more than I could ever hope to teach them. Thank you also to the other artists included in this thesis, Destiny Deacon and Rea, for their generosity. Lastly, I would like to thank myfamily for their endearing support and enthusiasm.
Hypatia Reviews Online, 2020
Quote: The authors push us beyond the promises of civil rights and essentialist promises of authenticity while also encouraging us to refuse the rupturing of our disciplines. *** Joanne Barker's edited volume, Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, joins the ranks of other contemporary edited collections such as Queer Indigenous Studies and Sovereign Erotics, both published by the University of Arizona Press in 2011. Others have also worked toward indigenizing the fields of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies while also calling for Indigenous studies to reconnect more seriously with the issues and questions brought forward by these fields.
Gender and Sexuality: Indigenous Feminist Perspectives by Elaine Coburn with Emma LaRocque
the Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Canadian Politics, 2020
We offer an overview of Indigenous women’s voices, concerning gender and sexuality, across a range of Indigenous civilizations, historically and today. In their activism, in their artistry and in their scholarly writing, Indigenous women affirm their agency and humanity against oppressive, dehumanizing colonial relationships. Yet Indigenous women are diverse and their political positions around gender equity and sexuality are varied and sometimes conflicting, reflecting rich debates within contemporary Indigenous feminist scholarship.