Decolonizing Gender: Indigenous Feminism and Native American Literature (original) (raw)

"This is the way that I am" : Early Indigenous American Women's Literature

Social justice and American Literature, 2017

Early American Indian women’s literature stands deeply rooted in historical Native issues of oppression and genocide, yet also brings to light more subtle and personal issues that have plagued indigenous women for generations. The justified anger and inevitable grief of subjugation parallels the issues of interracial children, interethnic identity, and cultural practices as resistance tactics. 19th and early 20th century Native women authors meet such complexities with protagonists who revolt against and resign themselves to an unjust society so that their enduring presence and literary voice embodies a revolutionary act.

Indigenous Feminism for American Indigenous Women Portrayed on The Plague of Doves by Erdrich

Rainbow : Journal of Literature, Linguistics and Culture Studies

Legitimacy of women existences captured diverse and compound through the lens of cultural and social background. In the course of history, American Indigenous Women elucidated their identity articulation following the West at the hand of feminism. However, ‘white’ feminism is not in the position to accommodate the unique characteristics of American Indigenous Women. Their social contour and cultural commandment of which giving a rise out of their position and power cried out for suitable paradigm. Indigenous feminism as perspective from and to Indigenous Women would serve to scrutinize women empowerment, aspiration and self-actualization of American Indigenous Women. The article as presented is part of the dissertation analysis within the title Cultural Memory and Demystification of American Native Women’ Position. The analysis of this research is a library based employing the novel from Indigenous female author, Louise Erdrich, entitled The Plague of Dove. In the discussion, the po...

Blurred Boundaries, Feminisms, and Indigenisms: Cocreating an Indigenous Oral History for Decolonization

Oral History Review , 2018

This article is about Indigenous oral histories and Indigenous feminisms as understood by a settler. It builds from critiques that urge gender and women’s studies to break out of the focus on parity and consider intersecting issues of settler colonialism and the decolonizing work necessary for achieving autonomy locally. I draw from my research collaboration with the Cree Nation of Chisasibi that traces the community’s process of developing a culturally safe model of care to explore epistemological and methodological practices codeveloped with my research partners. I then explore the ways in which these practices can inform the field of feminist oral history by insisting on foregrounding place-based culturally informed priorities.

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...

Native American Feminism

This paper explores the concept of a possible Native American feminist position and whether that term is applicable or too much a western concept. It also explores the possibility that (barring the term itself) feminism my be built into indigenous matrilineal cultures.

From Indigenous Literatures to Native American and Indigenous Theorists: The Makings of a Grassroots Decoloniality

Latin American Research Review, 2018

From the coloniality of power to the decolonial swerve, US-centered decolonial academics concur with the foundational points introduced by Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano. Nevertheless, they seldom cite Latin American Indigenous or Native American intellectuals’ decolonial perspectives, or examine specific bodies of critical thinking emerging in hemispheric Indigenous communities. In turn, a diversity of Indigenous paradigms and methods are appearing in the Americas, either as literary texts or critical works. Indigenous or Native American writers and theorists are often political actors, working within their respective grassroots movements, or writing to advance specific goals of their own communities. This article will emphasize Native American and Indigenous decolonial issues framed from a critique of contemporary Indigenous narratives. Their views both enrich and complicate Western decolonial theorists’ assumptions. Examining their production provides continuity to the polit...