Introduction

Sarah Nickel1

On 15 March 2016, Indigenous scholars Kim TallBear (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), Kim Anderson (Cree/Métis), and Audra Simpson (Mohawk) arrived in Saskatoon for a discussion playfully named the “Indigenous Feminism Power Panel.” In a packed room at Station 20 West (a Community Enterprise Centre on Saskatoon’s west side), scholars, community members, artists, and others came to hear these women talk about their identities and experiences as Indigenous feminists. Considering the long history of Indigenous feminism and the strong canon of Indigenous feminist literature that has emerged over the past thirty years, many were surprised when the women spoke cautiously and reluctantly about their identities as Indigenous feminists. After all, had they not been invited to speak on an Indigenous feminism panel? Responding to this mood, Anderson wryly noted, “I guess we were all outed as being Indigenous feminists on this panel.”2 It was clear, then, that such political identities were not straightforward. The reticence among the speakers epitomized a number of common trends within Indigenous feminisms, including a general anxiety around the term itself, a desire to explain one’s “journey to feminism” (if that is, in fact, a final destination), and the tendency for outsiders to ascribe identities to individuals they themselves might not always embrace.3

In her comments, TallBear, a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Environment at the University of Alberta, insisted she didn’t come to Indigenous feminism the “typical way” through engagements with Indigenous women, but rather through her understandings of feminist ideals in science. Wanting to bring marginalized voices together to dismantle hierarchies and “be in good relation” with one another, TallBear insisted: “Indigenous thinkers need to be at the table with feminists, we need to be at the table with disability scholars, and we need to be at the table with Queer theorists because we have very similar critiques of power. So that’s how I became a feminist. It wasn’t because of Indigenous women . . . [and] I don’t think there is only one road to Indigenous feminism.”4 This final point was certainly true for Anderson, an associate professor of Indigenous studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, who spoke of her journey toward motherhood as crystallizing her identity as an Indigenous feminist. Yet this identification first came from others who viewed her work on Indigenous women and motherhood as feminist. “I didn’t know I was an Indigenous feminist,” she admitted, but Indigenous feminism helped her to see the gendered fault lines in Indigenous communities and gave her the language and tools to address them.5

Simpson, a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, had a similar experience as a young woman and used feminist language to describe the gendered landscape around her. Initially involved in the “white feminist movement” in Brooklyn, New York, Simpson quickly became frustrated, believing her fellow students’ concerns about abortion and fair wages had nothing to do with Indigenous women’s experiences. Indeed, for Simpson—as for many other Indigenous women—white feminist movements simply did not and could not represent Indigenous women’s interests and realities, leading many to eschew feminism altogether.6 When Simpson returned to her home in Kahnawake, however, and saw the impact of Indian Act–based gender discrimination on Mohawk women, she decided to use her “privilege” as a “full blood” in the local Native Women’s Association of Canada chapter to seek change. As she reflected on whether or not this made her an Indigenous feminist, Simpson clarified: “I stopped being the other kind of feminist and I just started being a responsible Mohawk.”7 As it had for TallBear, for Simpson, Indigenous feminism became synonymous with “acting in good relation” and “being responsible” to community.

As my co-editor and I listened to these three women grapple with what Indigenous feminism meant to them, we were left wondering how useful Indigenous feminism was for describing the multiple ways in which Indigenous folks act in good relation. A term that had seemed boundless and full of potential when we first conceptualized this collection now appeared limiting, dated, and flat. Although TallBear, Simpson, and Anderson should not be viewed here as the representatives of Indigenous feminisms, this event and the conversations that emerged from it offer several useful entry points for discussion. We wondered if we should be embracing broader views, such as Simpson’s and TallBear’s conceptions of good relations and responsibility, or perhaps Indigenous gender and queer theories, which seemed to make more room for experiences beyond those of cis-gendered heterosexual women. Yet upon closer reflection on the multiple approaches to and expressions of Indigenous feminism reflected in the literature, lived experiences, and submissions for this collection, we realized the continued possibilities and relevance of this concept—not as an isolated area of scholarship but as a way to connect previously separated conversations.

Put simply, Indigenous feminisms reflect and capture the multiple ways in which gender and race, and therefore the systems of power related to these (sexism, racism, and colonialism) shape Indigenous peoples’ lives.8 Indigenous feminisms have the potential to expose and destabilize patriarchal gender roles and the structures that sustain and promote continued Indigenous dispossession and disempowerment through colonialism. Understanding the unique ways Indigenous peoples experience gender and colonial bias provides the foundation for most discussions of Indigenous feminism and it therefore remains a beneficial lens and set of experiences that can challenge assumptions about colonialism, sexism, identity, the gender binary, normative sexualities, and time and space. It can also complicate and complement other concepts such as Indigenous queer theory and Indigenous masculinities, which are often siloed into their respective scholarly corners. We see this collection as building on a strong foundation of Indigenous feminist work (intentioned or not) to tear down these interpretive barriers. We envision increased dialogue between gender theories and a framework with which we can consider how Indigenous feminisms can contribute to the conversations and lived experiences of queer and gender theories, and how these in turn can make us think differently about Indigenous feminisms.

Scholarly Genealogies

The field of Indigenous feminism has grown considerably in the past thirty years, and a number of scholars have traced this development in previously published works.9 Recently, Joyce Green (Ktunaxa and Cree-Scots Métis) reflected on the state of the field in the second edition of her iconic collection Making Space for Indigenous Feminism (2017), noting that in the past ten years there has been “a significant body of writing relevant to Indigenous feminism, and within some Indigenous and non-Indigenous political organizations there is some recognition that gendered analysis is critical for political legitimacy and for sound policy and strategy.”10 Yet Green and others remain acutely aware that “sexism, misogyny, and racism continue to afflict Indigenous women, and serious engagement with these factors is not yet consistent or routine in either Indigenous or settler governments and communities.”11 Even academic Indigenous feminists are not safe from reprisals.12

Thus Green and others, including Joanne Barker (Lanape), Cheryl Suzack (Anishinaabe), Mishuauna Goeman (Seneca), and Jennifer Nez Denetdale (Diné), have incisively convinced readers of the longevity, challenges, and continued need for Indigenous feminist theory and action through their detailed explorations of academic and activist genealogies.13 And I will not reproduce these efforts here. Instead, I will provide a generalized sweep of the state of the field in order to orient the reader to the work in this collection and its contribution to ongoing conversations. There are several discernible genealogies of Indigenous feminism, taken up by academics, community members, poets, activists, and others (some intentionally feminist and others not), and these can be understood through several trends. Thirty-five years ago, Beatrice Medicine (Standing Rock Sioux) and Patricia Albers produced one of the first academic works to privilege Indigenous women’s lives, and while it was not framed explicitly as Indigenous feminist analysis, it aligned with the basic principles of Indigenous feminisms.14

The 1986 book The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions, by Paula Gunn Allen (Laguna Pueblo), stands out as one of the first Indigenous feminist texts and is often cited as a seminal work for the field.15 The novels and poetry of Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo) similarly emphasized the resilience and empowerment of Indigenous women, particularly those of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, drawing readers’ attention to the impacts of settler colonialism on Indigenous women.16 Likewise, in using poems, music, literature, and performance to emphasize the resilience and empowerment of Indigenous women, individuals such as Beth Brant (Tyendinaga Mohawk), Maria Campbell (Cree-Métis), Buffy Saint-Marie (Cree), Louise Bernice Halfe (Cree), and Pauline Johnson (Mohawk) are widely considered to be contributors to Indigenous feminisms. Practising what Maile Arvin (Kanaka Maoli), Eve Tuck (Unangax), and Angie Morrill (Klamath) label “Indigenous feminist theories,” which make room for individuals to challenge gendered colonial oppression without openly identifying as Indigenous feminists, these authors (and others) highlight the longevity and flexibility of Indigenous feminisms.17

Twenty years ago, celebrated author and critic Lee Maracle (Stó:lō), speaking about Indigenous women’s relationship to white feminism, explained: “I am not interested in gaining entry to the doors of the ‘white women’s movement.’ I would look just a little ridiculous sitting in their living rooms saying ‘we this and we that.’”18 Maracle and others, including Allen, challenged the centrality of white feminisms and argued for different expressions of feminism that aligned with Indigenous realities and theories, and from this, the concept and experiences of Indigenous feminisms gained currency.19 This is not to say there haven’t been moments of cooperation and feminist solidarity, however. In addition to community events such as yearly memorial marches for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG), solidarity has included the events organized in 1973 by the Status of Women Council, after Jeanette Lavell lost her bid to have her status reinstated after marrying a non-Indigenous man;20 cooperation in the 1990s, when the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) and National Action Committee on the Status of Women organized around the Charlottetown Accord;21 and further cooperation in 2016, when the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, together with NWAC, made a submission to the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.22

And yet, some have overtly insisted that feminism simply is not needed in Indigenous communities, and others reject the term itself as a European construction.23 Indeed, Green offers a robust discussion of the challenges to Indigenous feminism and feminists in the introduction to the second edition of Making Space, where she explores issues of tradition and authenticity, and the fraught relationship between Indigenous sovereignty and feminism. Green maintains that “too many Indigenous women have been silenced or had their social and political roles minimized by invocations of appropriate tradition relative to women’s voices and choices.”24 Joanne Barker’s recent collection Critically Sovereign takes up these challenges as well, with authors “demonstrate[ing] the concerns within critical Indigenous gender, sexuality, and feminist studies over how critical sovereignty and self-determination are to Indigenous peoples . . . [while addressing] the politics of gender, sexuality, and feminism within how that sovereignty and self-determination is imagined, represented, and exercised.” Barker insists, simply: “It is not enough to claim you are sovereign as Indigenous, you must be accountable to the kinds of Indigeneity the sovereignty you claim asserts.”25 Despite historical and continued resistance, strong scholarly conversations have produced a robust field of inquiry that promises to reshape understandings of Indigenous experience.

In the past ten years, there have been two principal trends within Indigenous feminist scholarship: works that explicitly engage with and interrogate Indigenous feminism as a theoretical concept and identity, and those that apply Indigenous feminism as a form of analysis across a number of fields and topics. In the first category, the most well-known studies include two groundbreaking anthologies: Joyce Green’s Making Space for Indigenous Feminism (2007, 2017); and Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture (2010), edited by Cheryl Suzack (Anishinaabe, Indigenous studies and English scholar), Shari Huhndorf (Yup’ik, professor of ethnic studies and women’s and gender studies), Jeanne Perrault (English professor), and Jean Barman (historian). The first trend also includes two journals: the American Quarterly’s “Forum: Native Feminisms without Apology” (2008), edited by media and cultural studies professor Andrea Smith and anthropologist J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (Kanaka Maoli), and the “Native Feminism” issue of the Wicazo Sa Review (2009), edited by gender and American Indian studies scholar Mishuana Goeman and historian Jennifer Nez Denetdale (2009).26 Within these pages, many of the contributors grapple with the complex and often troubled relationship between Indigenous women and feminism and produce rich theoretical debates that traverse international boundaries and disciplinary conventions. They reflect on their own feminist ideals and practices, expressions of feminism in art and culture, law, politics and activism, and everyday life. Kim Anderson and Bonita Lawrence’s collection Strong Women Stories: Native Vision and Community Survival (2003) should also be considered here, even though it was not overtly characterized as Indigenous feminism as the other publications were.27 Framed around Indigenous women’s stories, the contributions explore the impact of colonialism and patriarchy on women’s lived realities through stories of community and identity, politics and leadership, health, education, and activism.

Across these collections, transnational conversations highlight shared struggles as well as strong divergences in how Indigenous women around the world envision themselves and feminist ideologies. Perhaps most importantly, these collections present definitions of Indigenous feminism their authors take up, critique, and contribute to on their own terms. Scholars concerned with Canadian Indian policy such as Joanne Barker, Dian Million (Tanana Athabascan), Cheryl Suzack, and Audra Simpson, for instance, frame Indigenous feminism in the context of codifying heteropatriarchy through the settler-colonial Indian Act, yet many authors also unapologetically locate feminism as an Indigenous concept.28 Goeman and Denetdale, for instance, question the deep-seated assumption that “feminism is long held to be in the purview of white rule, according to much literature on Native women and feminism. It is long believed to be a European invention or, much worse, a colonial imposition that sought to destroy tribal ways of life.”29 Likewise challenging notions of feminism’s supposed whiteness, Kauanui and Smith, in their “Native Feminism without Apology” forum firmly assert the power of Indigenous feminism to challenge colonialism and sexism.30

Alongside (and in some cases within) these collections are a number of articles that mobilize Indigenous feminism or expand Indigenous feminist theory into new areas of analysis, including law, gendered violence, and Indigenous research methodologies. Historian Maile Arvin, critical race and Indigenous studies scholar Eve Tuck, and ethnic studies scholar Angie Morrill further challenge understandings of Indigenous feminism as a recent phenomenon and look to Indigenous women’s historical activities to demonstrate how Indigenous feminist theories, as they term them, forward the Indigenous feminist project regardless of the labels women use for their own political identities. The authors similarly situate Indigenous feminism as an explicitly political project, challenging prevailing assumptions that Indigenous women are not political.31

Applying Indigenous feminism to the field of law, legal scholars Val Napoleon (Saulteau) and John Borrows (Anishinaabe/Ojibway) and Indigenous studies and gender studies scholar Emily Snyder expose and analyze the ways in which Indigenous laws are gendered, despite claims to the contrary.32 In their co-authored article “Gender and Violence: Drawing on Indigenous Legal Resources,” Snyder, Borrows, and Napoleon eschew interpretations of Indigenous culture as being disconnected from power and Indigenous legal traditions. They offer a “critical gendered approach to Indigenous laws,” cautioning against romanticized views of “the ‘Indigenous’ past as being non-violent and non-sexist” in order to understand and address historical and contemporary gendered violence.33 This analysis is confirmed within Indigenous feminism, with Green insisting that “Indigenous feminist analysis goes further than other Indigenous libratory [sic] critiques in suggesting that not all pre-colonial Indigenous social practices were innocent of oppression, including sex oppression.”34

Elsewhere, Snyder challenges “gender ‘neutral’ approaches, which are pervasive in Indigenous legal studies” and “often rely on a universal male subject and express a male-centred version of Indigenous legal theory and laws.”35 To address the erasure of other gendered experiences and combat false claims of gender equality, Snyder proposes an alternative framework—Indigenous feminist legal theory—that “is intersectional, attentive to power, anti-colonial, anti-essentialist, multi-juridical, and embraces a spirit of critique that challenges static notions of tradition, identity, gender, sex, and sexuality.”36 Professor and lawyer Sarah Deer (Muscogee) takes a similar approach to understand sexual violence against Indigenous women. Mobilizing an Indigenous feminist framework, Deer notes how male-dominated traditional and settler legal systems marginalize rape victims, either by forcing Indigenous women to forgive Indigenous men, or by working within a settler legal system premised on victims proving the perpetrator’s guilt. Preventing further harms, she argues, requires centring Indigenous women in all legal systems.37

Beyond legal considerations, Indigenous feminism is central to discussions of gendered violence, which scholars such as Sherene Razack, Mishuana Goeman, Andrea Smith, and Sarah Hunt explore through concepts of geographical and socio-political space, while others such as Rauna Kuokkanen (Sámi), Robyn Bourgeois (Cree), and Mary Eberts examine through policy and the justice system.38 Indigenous feminism has also permeated methodological discussions in Indigenous studies specifically. Both Goeman and TallBear have integrated Indigenous feminist theories into their methodological practice—framing Indigenous women’s standpoints as essential to conducting ethical and situated work.39 Goeman takes a broad view of the potential of Indigenous feminist methods to intervene in many fields of inquiry. She insists: “The various methods employed by Indigenous feminist studies asks [sic] us all to rethink the structures that make possible great injustices that often have an intersectional gendered undergirding, and they ask us to reconsider moves toward justice that do not reaffirm settler-colonial hierarchies that rely on normative gender, sex, and racial hierarchies.”40

Indigenous feminisms also inform academic and community conversations on political resistance and sovereignty. Additionally, LGBTQ2 issues are emergent, pushing back against the tendency to view Indigenous feminism as a concept solely concerned with normative genders and sexualities. Joanne Barker’s recent collection Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (2017) brought together gender, sexuality, and feminism to reflect on Indigenous sovereignty, colonialism, and imperialism, thus offering critical insights into necessity of gendered political analysis.41 This represents a growing trend of scholarship that highlights women’s activities and interventions as political, where they might otherwise be considered “social,” thus expanding our understandings of concepts such as sovereignty and politics as inherently gendered processes.42

The present collection builds on this foundation. Its title highlights the centrality of Indigenous feminisms as well as the relational conversations (and scholarly genealogies) that brought us to this place. It takes up Green’s assertion of the “transformative potential of feminism” for understanding how “racism and sexism fuse when brought to bear on Indigenous women”—and, we would add, on LGBTQ2 individuals as well.43 It continues to broaden and deepen understandings of what Indigenous feminisms are, and incorporates theories, practices, and bodies outside traditional purviews. It takes up and expands existing definitions of Indigenous feminism, following Sarah Nickel and Emily Snyder’s assertion that “Indigenous feminisms examine how gender and conceptions of gender influence the lives of Indigenous peoples, historically and today. Indigenous feminist approaches challenge stereotypes about Indigenous peoples, gender and sexuality . . . and address the many ways that sexuality, gender and gender norms (expectations about how people should act or behave based on perceptions about their gender) shape Indigenous people’s lives.”44 This collection, therefore, offers room for questioning, revising, and reinventing Indigenous feminisms and includes pieces that question gender roles, identities, and tradition, explore kinship and sexuality, and centralize self-reflection. The threads of Indigenous feminisms highlighted here are not intended to reflect “the new directions” in Indigenous feminisms, and do not presume to subsume or overtake the work done by past Indigenous feminists, or by those working in Indigenous queer and masculinity studies. Instead, we wish to cultivate cross-fertilizations and dialogue.

To accomplish this, we bring together voices of Indigenous feminisms from junior scholars, community members, artists, and others that may not find representation in academic collections, and this helps us to consider the broad and even contradictory range of ways that diverse peoples engage with Indigenous feminisms today. Through poetry, creative pieces, and more traditional scholarly works, authors prove that Indigenous feminist theories are everywhere and, as such, bridge the false dichotomy between “academy” and “community” that Audra Simpson, Andrea Smith, and Kim TallBear argue is central to “demystifying” theory.45 Representing and embracing diverse opinions and experiences, this inclusive and non-essentializing collection presents critical interventions into history, politics, and theory by outlining the transformative potential of Indigenous feminisms.

To enable these conversations, differences, and cross-connections to take place, this collection is organized around the notion of “generations.” Here, the term is not meant to denote a strict temporal or age-based distinction, but rather alludes to “waves” of Indigenous feminist thought that are becoming distinct from one another while retaining important affinities. Our goal here is to capture how movements, ideas, and experiences grow and change over time and across space. By conceiving of changes in scholarship and experience as generational within an Indigenous context, we can explore change as well as continuity and connection. In order to challenge myopic understandings of Indigenous feminisms, we offer representation from broad geographical areas (Canada, the United States, and Sápmi territory in northern Europe) and disciplinary influences (history, Indigenous studies, social work, sociology, and English), and from diverse contributors with different backgrounds (activists, artists, scholars) and positionalities (gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, age).

If we use the idea of generations to encapsulate both the divergences and connections in our work, then we also see this notion in personal terms. In this sense, the collection is a multi-generational nod to those who came before us and those who walk beside us—to the Indigenous feminist scholars, community members, and others, who in action (if not in identity) embraced the ideals of Indigenous feminism by living, surviving, talking, acting, resisting in their homes and communities, as well as in courtrooms and in community halls.

What Follows

The collection is anchored around three thematic sections. The first, “Broadening Indigenous Feminisms,” looks beyond established categories and spaces to consider historical expressions of Indigenous feminism, transnational and regional experiences, as well as violence, representation, and resistance. The opening poem “The Uninvited,” by Anishinaabe scholar Jana-Rae Yerxa, introduces the spirit of the collection, which offers space to individuals who feel their work may not be fully represented in current iterations of Indigenous feminism. Indicating the “arrival” of the contributors and insisting it is their “turn to speak” serves as a strong introduction to what follows. Elaine McArthur’s poem “Us” then gestures toward many of the themes explored here, including stereotypical representations of Indigenous peoples, colonial violence, cultural survival, and resistance.

In Chapter 1, white settler historian Madeline Knickerbocker demonstrates the historical nature of Indigenous feminism through her analysis of Stó:lō women’s roles in late-twentieth-century political activism. Using archival and oral history interviews, Knickerbocker explores the gendered nature of Stó:lō politics through the battle for Coqualeetza, which brought together Stó:lō women as cultural educators and Stó:lō men as formal political actors. Challenging the erasure of Indigenous women as political actors, Knickerbocker situates Stó:lō women firmly within the political dialogues surrounding Indigenous sovereignty and cultural preservation, where they engaged in direct action, storytelling, and preserving Stó:lō culture and community.

If Indigenous feminism can travel in time, as Knickerbocker demonstrates, so too can it move across space. In Chapter 2, Sámi and Norwegian anthropologist Astri Dankertsen challenges us to think about Indigenous feminism beyond the North American context, putting forward the idea of “Sámi feminist moments” to create space for the everyday ways in which Indigenous feminism is manifest. Focusing on the traditional territory of the Sámi peoples, Dankertsen reveals how colonialism’s particular expression in Nordic countries has contributed to pervasive mythical stereotyping of Sámi peoples, which demands a culturally appropriate framework as a solution. Indigenous feminism in Sápmi territory, Dankertsen argues, is often subtle and indirect, and we need to understand this unique cultural element in order to fully appreciate the ways in which Sámi peoples perform feminism and resistance.

Representations likewise play a key role in Chapter 3, where Cree/Métis filmmaker and professor of English Tasha Hubbard, along with Joi T. Arcand, Zoey Roy, Darian Lonechild, and Marie Sanderson, explore Indigenous feminist expressions through film. Hubbard, together with her collaborators, focuses on how young Indigenous women in the Canadian prairies challenge stereotypical representations of Indigenous peoples and combat the inherent dangers of being an Indigenous woman in violent settler-colonial spaces. Hubbard uses her short film 7 Minutes to engage Indigenous women in conversations about Indigenous feminism and resistance. The film, which follows a young female Indigenous nursing student on her walk from campus home, reveals Indigenous women’s everyday encounters with the dangerous white male gaze and threats to their safety. Hubbard’s multi-layered chapter highlights important conversations among young Indigenous women about their experiences with violence, harmful representations, and most importantly, their continued resistance to these.

Finally, in Chapter 4, historian and Indigenous studies scholar Sarah Nickel (Secwépemc) uses case studies of twentieth-century Indian Homemakers’ Clubs in western Canada to explore Indigenous women’s complex engagements with the Eurocentric theoretical underpinnings of the clubs, as well as settler involvement in the clubs’ operations. Embracing the inherent contradictions of the clubs, which were both sites of settler domesticity and oversight as well as Indigenous women’s leadership, reveals the broad variation of Indigenous women’s political work.

Taken together, these chapters suggest that Indigenous women have always been political but have had to navigate stereotypes, representations, and gender expectations that equate their roles to apolitical motherhood and community caretaking, restricting politics to spheres defined as male. The authors here show how women, Two-Spirit, and other individuals who have typically been excluded from so-called political activities nevertheless engage in political and feminist work, consciously and strategically as well as subconsciously and accidentally, through everyday relationships, activities like socializing, cultural preservation, homemaking, sewing, and storytelling.

The second thematic section on “Queer and Two-Spirit Identities, and Sexuality” furthers our project of envisioning Indigenous feminism as a flexible and multi-vocal concept with wide-ranging applicability. Here we explore the intersections between Indigenous feminisms and the growing field of Indigenous queer studies. The authors centre lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and Two-Spirit (LGBTQ2) folks in these conversations. They disrupt depictions of Indigenous cultures and traditions that erase LGBTQ2 identities, and grapple with longstanding questions about how Indigenous peoples addressed and continue to address sovereignty, sexism, health, and sexuality from LGBTQ2 identities and experiences. As Qwo-Li Driskill, Chris Finley, Brian Joseph Gilley, and Scott Lauria Morgensen insist, “Indigenous GLBTQ2 identities are deeply complex. The issue of terminology always pushes at the limits of language.”46 Many of the authors here use the term Two-Spirit—a Pan-Indigenous term adopted in 1990 at an international gathering held in Beausejour, Manitoba—as this serves as both an umbrella term that is broadly applicable as well as one that was internally defined and accepted by Indigenous LGBTQ2 communities. The specific applications of and discussions around these terms are detailed throughout the individual chapters.

Two-Spirit Métis/Sault Ste. Marie Nishnaabe American studies doctoral student Kai Pyle begins the section by bringing Indigenous feminism to critically engage with curriculum deficiencies in Chapter 5. Seeing Indigenous peoples represented in the curriculum according to stereotypical and generalized “traditional” gender roles, Pyle centralizes Two-Spirit perspectives to (re)build healthy and accurate Indigenous gender roles. Situating this issue as one intimately linked to health, Indigenous sovereignty, identity, and self-determination, Pyle calls for changes to be made in communities, organizations, and academia.

In Chapter 6, Aubrey Hanson, a queer Métis professor of Indigenous education, brings a literary Indigenous feminist approach to analyzing the work of Indigenous poet Chrystos. Troubled by the erasure of Two-Spirit Indigenous peoples in Indigenous feminist conversations, Hanson argues for Two-Spirit communities to reclaim this space through the erotic, which she insists is a site of both sovereignty and Indigenous feminisms. Hanson calls for connection and cohesion as a way to bring Indigenous people back into feminist discourse, to redefine it in ways that enable better representation.

Taking the connections between Two-Spirit experiences and sexuality in a different direction, Indigenous studies scholar Chantal Fiola (Michif/Métis) uses an Indigenous feminist lens in Chapter 7 to understand the role that Two-Spirit folks play in the pursuit of mino-bimaadiziwin (a good balanced life). She notes the problematic ways in which so-called traditional gender roles and colonial heteropatriarchy have oppressed Indigenous women and naawenangweyaabeg (the Anishinaabe concept for a person who mends, or keeps others together and from wandering). Fiola draws on the reflections of four naawenangweyaabeg role models to expose the complexities of Indigenous sexuality, highlight the roles and responsibilities of Two-Spirit people, and show how intergenerational relationships and alliances are essential to decolonization and mino-bimaadiziwin.

In Chapter 8, Xicana (Yaqui/Mexica), social work professor Ramona Beltrán, doctoral student Antonia Alvarez (mestiza Pinay), and Two-Spirit Indigenous anti-violence worker Miriam Puga broaden our understandings of Indigenous feminist analysis to include Two-Spirit identity in health education. Focusing on the experiences of Two-Spirit and/or LGBTQ-identified Indigenous youth participating in culture-centred HIV prevention program that uses the Indigenous Youth RiseUp! curriculum, the authors demonstrate how Indigenous feminist and queer approaches to curriculum creation contribute to participants’ increased self-esteem, cultural pride, and improved community development. The authors emphasize the positive impact these theoretical frameworks can have on the lived experiences of people accessing health programming.

The third thematic section, “Multi-Generational Feminisms and Kinship,” confirms Indigenous feminism as a family affair but highlights the multiple, shifting, and at times deeply uncomfortable and contradictory ways this manifests for many people. As in the previous section, the authors in some chapters challenge the dominance of Indigenous motherhood in discussions of Indigenous feminism and consider how feminism relates to various Indigenous kinship relationships across a mixture of spaces, time periods, and emotional landscapes. Contributors reimagine and complicate ideas of parenthood, tradition, responsibility, and decolonization.

In Chapter 9, sociologist and anthropologist Zoe Todd (Métis/otipemisiw) looks to her great-grandmother as a theorist to help her understand and explore multi-generational Métis feminisms. She draws on the histories, experiences, and stories of her family to challenge stereotypes about political action, Indigenous identity, and tradition to centre narratives of women’s resistance and the complexities of place and belonging.

Anishinaabe gender studies scholar Waaseyaa’in Christine Sy also looks to family and kinship in Chapter 10 and challenges ideals of heteronormativity, culture, and tradition with a creative narrative on decolonial Anishinaabe parenting. She offers deep intersectional and multi-generational analyses of Indigenous feminism and parenting as she reproduces conversations with her black-Anishinaabe daughter. Waaseyaa’in discovers divergences between her and her daughter’s ideology and experiences of feminism, and highlights these as spaces for dialogue and convergence.

In Chapter 11, Cree-Métis-Salteaux storyteller and curator Lindsay Nixon explores connections and relationships in the Canadian Indigenous art community to understand what applying Indigenous Relational Aesthetics (IRA) through an Indigenous feminist lens can offer to the work of decolonization. Using the 1990 exhibit Native Love as a case study, Nixon exposes the rich potential of IRA to enact feminist change in art museums, and the Indigenous and dominant art communities.

Chapter 12 features another cross-generational dialogue: Nêhiýaw historian Omeasoo Wāhpāsiw and her mother, the poet Louise Bernice Halfe, contemplate their complex and shifting identities as Indigenous feminists as well as their broader kinship relationships, experiences with activism, and roles as mothers. Wāhpāsiw envisions an expression of Indigenous feminism that makes space for herself as a Cree intellectual, mother, daughter, and activist, as well as for her young son and other male relatives. Grappling with her identity as a feminist amid kinship relationships that at times serve to maintain patriarchy drives Wāhpāsiw’s deep reflection on what Indigenous feminism means—and can mean for her. Closing this section, and indeed the volume, are photographs of artist Anina Major’s ceramic figures titled “These Are My Daughters.” These artworks offer a visual representation of culture and kinship connections—drawing Major toward the knowledge of her grandmother’s artistry and illustrations of culture and home.

Conversations

Taken together, these chapters create a meaningful dialogue about the nature and definition of Indigenous feminisms across a number of themes, methodologies, and disciplines. Many of the essays engage with kinship and relationships in both complementary and contradictory ways that epitomize the flexibility of Indigenous feminisms. For some, including Sy, Wāhpāsiw and Halfe, and Major, motherhood and womanhood are central and meaningful (though challenging) components for Indigenous feminism, while Pyle, Todd, and Hanson insist these categories are limiting and have the potential to exclude other gendered bodies and sets of experiences. For Sy, motherhood is deeply intersectional and bound up in multiple genealogies and relationships that make up our families. For Wāhpāsiw and Halfe, motherhood is mediated through complex family gendered relationships and power dynamics that are rarely discussed openly, if at all. They are also rife with assumptions about family responsibility, which often falls disproportionately on mothers. Fiola believes in the centrality and importance of motherhood but cautions against constructing this in limiting ways (including placing the importance of motherhood over other experiences and realities) that exclude other gendered bodies. Knickerbocker and Nickel demonstrate the ways in which Indigenous women’s gendered roles (including motherhood) can be used as strategic political resistance. Overall, we are left with a sense of both the power and privilege of motherhood, as well as the ways in which it is bound up in colonial heteropatriarchy, which assumes women’s bodies dictate their social roles and capabilities, thus ignoring gendered bodies that exist outside these normative demands. We also see the ways that Indigenous peoples resist these expectations and how Indigenous feminism can provide the tools to do so.

Another significant thread throughout the collection is the concept of relational responsibility. Through their discussions of education and curriculum—particularly as it relates to Two-Spirit folks—Beltrán, Alvarez, and Puga, and Pyle highlight the need for appropriate education in terms of accountability to community and to those within community who are often excluded. Fiola, Sy, and Major remind us of ancestral and kinship responsibilities and suggest that cross-generational influence and learning is not unidirectional—moving from older generations to younger—but multidirectional, and Hubbard informs us that we can learn as much from ourselves as we can from each other. Wāhpāsiw’s and Halfe’s engagement with Indigenous feminism embodies this dialogue in that Wāhpāsiw’s understandings of and experiences with Indigenous feminism diverge significantly from those of her mother. Wāhpāsiw also challenges these categories to create new possibilities for her son Kopit, whom she sees as integral to Indigenous feminist ideals. This multi-generational conversation demands an iteration of Indigenous feminism that makes sense for these diverse realities and positions.

Representation is also central to many of the chapters in this collection. Hubbard, Dankertsen, Pyle, and Fiola address mythical, “authentic,” stereotypical, and “traditional” representations of Indigenous peoples, suggesting that figures such as Sámi goddesses, Indian princesses, warriors, and hypersexualized Indigenous women do not reflect Indigenous realities but promote violence, shame, and damaging misconceptions. Gender stereotyping and assumptions about gender roles were also prevalent in twentieth-century Indigenous communities, as demonstrated by Knickerbocker and Nickel, and Indigenous women engaged in significant labour to combat political erasure as well as erasure from collective historical memory. Indeed, Indigenous peoples have always resisted the violence (Dankertsen, Hubbard, and Hanson), gendered erasure (Todd, Knickerbocker, Nickel, Pyle, Sy, and Beltrán), and misrepresentations meted out as “punishment” for transgressing gender identity boundaries, or cultural and sexual expectations, or even for simply daring to exist in white spaces (Nixon, Hubbard, Major, McArthur, and Yerxa). This collective resistance, as Dankertsen and Fiola remind us, is critical for building capacity among Indigenous peoples, but it must also leave space for unique cultural needs and individual self-identification so as not to produce Indigenous feminist moments that homogenize and flatten Indigenous experiences. These conversations of resistance, survival, and Indigenous feminisms are never far from discussions of Indigenous sovereignty, nationhood, and individual autonomy. All are intertwined and necessary for ensuring the well-being of all Indigenous folks.

Indigenous feminisms, represented in the following spaces of refusal and reclamation, are where we can reject heteronormativity, colonialism, and patriarchy, and reclaim space for LGBTQ2 peoples and Indigenous feminist actions that do not necessarily find representation elsewhere. Indigenous feminisms move across time and space, and as the contributors to this book demonstrate, are articulated and performed in people’s everyday lives. There is also a desire for connection and cohesion through a concept or theory or experience that is inclusive.

New Areas for Exploration

In addition to expanding understandings of Indigenous feminisms, this collection offers new perspectives on a series of underexplored research areas and subjects. Beltrán, Alvarez, and Puga’s piece points to a need for Indigenous LGBTQ2-identified people to be better represented in Indigenous feminist health literature. There is a strong and growing body of work on sterilization and on nutritional and medical experimentation, but LGBTQ2 experiences are largely excluded.47 Discussions of kinship in this collection also point to new areas of interest, including kinship relationships and belonging through adoption, relationships not defined as family, and making space for those who lack connection to kin for a variety of reasons. Wāhpāsiw’s reference to “creat[ing] a whole new family everywhere I go” points to kinship relationships that are built through friendship, proximity, and shared experiences. There is a tendency to view women as integral to the family and community, but these roles and relationships are often strictly defined as maternal and family roles. This leaves little room for friendships, professional relationships, and other roles that Indigenous feminists practise in everyday life. What about those for whom Indigenous feminism is decidedly not about motherhood, kinship, tradition, or community? How can their voices be heard within this space? More work in this arena needs to be done.

Historical representations of Indigenous feminisms also need further exploration. Knickerbocker and Nickel locate Indigenous feminist practices in 1970s Stó:lō territory and the Homemakers’ Clubs of Canada’s West, and Todd looks to her grandmother as a source of feminist inspiration, yet we still know little about how historical events, identities, and activities can be understood as historical Indigenous feminisms. We need more work that codes Indigenous women’s work in particular, as political, activist, and feminist, regardless of the time in which it took place. This will highlight the long roots of Indigenous feminism we know to exist in Indigenous communities.

At the Station 20 West “Indigenous Feminism Power Panel,” Kim TallBear, Audra Simpson, and Kim Anderson engaged in deep reflection about the role Indigenous feminisms played in shaping their identities, research, and lives. The contributors here have taken on Indigenous feminisms as a call to action—a way, as TallBear eloquently stated, to act in good relation. Embodying this principle, this collection is a political act of Indigenous feminist survivance. It builds on and reproduces multi-generational dialogue and relationships, and it challenges the very notion of academic scholarship and identity, bringing together individuals from different countries, backgrounds, career paths, and knowledge bases, to have meaningful conversations.

Contents

Introduction

Scholarly Genealogies

What Follows

Conversations

New Areas for Exploration