Indigenous women

Aboriginal incarceration rates are much higher than the general Australian population. Moreover, indigenous women represent 34% of the total number of inmates. As if this wasn't enough, the legal and welfare systems are removing indigenous children from their families and culture, serving as a mechanism of forced assimilation.

By Suzi Hutchings for Debates Indígenas.

Desarrollado desde la perspectiva de la antropología histórica, este artículo expone una revisión actualizada de la circulación de cuentas vítreas en Chile tras el momento de contacto hispano-mapuche acontecido en el siglo XVI. A partir de la comparación de fuentes historiográficas y evidencias arqueológicas, el trabajo plantea que dentro de la sociedad mapuche la introducción de tales artefactos no logró desplazar en el corto plazo el uso de cuentas locales o llangka, lo que se tradujo en la coexistencia de ambos tipos al menos hasta el siglo XIX.

Abstract: Developed from the perspective of historical anthropology, this article offers an updated review of the circulation of glass beads in Chile after the moment of Hispanic-Mapuche contact in the 16th century. Based on the comparison of historiographic sources and archaeological evidence, the work suggests that within the Mapuche society, the introduction of such artifacts did not displace the use of local beads or llangka in the short term, which resulted in the coexistence of both types at least until the 19th century.

In this article, we explore the concept of Indigenous scholar sisterhood practices and its powerful role in affirming Indigenous women to survive and thrive in the act of research and the larger academic landscape. We address how we, as Indigenous women scholars, extend beyond transactional validity practices in qualitative research and engage in a collective form of validity that is holistic and grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing. We explore what it means to live our research and reclaim academic spaces among a collective sisterhood, as we grapple with questions of what valid and rigorous research looks like from an Indigenous perspective. Recognizing that attempts to decolonize methodological spaces can be complex and tempered with struggles, we provide personal accounts of Indigenous scholar sisterhood practices of love, prayer, vulnerability, and resistance and protection used to maneuver through this space together. As Indigenous women scholars, we conclude by reimagining the value of collective work as a means to not only survive academia but lift up our communities.

In this paper I examine how the use of Indigenous digital storytelling (DST) within the framework of Indigenous research methodology, allowed Indigenous women to share their health stories in a safe and respectful context. This decolonizing methodology allowed for self-representation that challenged stereotypes and allowed Indigenous women to prioritize their own social and community needs and to protect their identities and cultural values in the process (Iseke & Moore, 2011). The digital storytelling participant interviews, which is the data this paper is based upon, reveals several key aspects of conducting culturally relevant and ethically sound DST with Indigenous women including: findings and discussion on the process of DST, and the Indigenous knowledge translation (iKT) event, Legacy: Indigenous Women’s Health Stories. In the last chapter, I will situate myself within this re-search  and share my self-reflectivity through Absolon’s (2011) Petal Flower framework starting with “The Flower Centre: Self as Central” to the Indigenous research process (pp.67-69). I will also highlight my “relational responsibility” to my co-creators – my continued advocacy for Indigenous women’s health using their digital stories - and how I included them in this process as much as possible (Gaudry as cited Strega and Brown, 2015, p. 256).

In this article, the author presents an Indigenous Epistolary Methodology (IEM) to reflect on what it means for Indigenous women to engage thenotion of refusal in traditional writing methods and qualitative research.
The author proposes that an IEM, nestled within her familial genealogies, Indigenous Knowledges and Chicana Feminist Epistemology can provide a more expressive account of her relations as a mothering Indigenous and
Chicana Woman of Color in academia.

Rachel Mariano and Betty Belén, indigenous women and human rights advocates share their incarceration stories due to trumped-up charges and evidence. The cause of their persecution is clear: they defend their ancestral lands. Because of their activities, their families and communities also suffer the impacts of prison. At present, both leaders have currently been released and continue to fight against the development projects of transnational companies in a context of escalating attacks against the indigenous peoples of the country.

By Abigail Bengwayan-Anongos for Debates Indígenas.

The aim of this paper is to examine the vulnerability of indigenous women in the migration context using
interdisciplinary approaches as a conceptual framework. There are several types of social tension and
different kinds of discrimination that impact the lives of indigenous women who migrate voluntarily or by
force – a very controversial question. For this reason the whole migration process must be analyzed to
verify, from the normative point of view of Human Rights, whether their rights are guaranteed or not
along the hard route toward their destination as well as after they have arrived. At the same time, we
want to consider indigenous women’s possibilities of empowerment in this new phase of her lives. Will they
be a disempowered minority forever? A gendered minority doomed to remain subordinate? Since
colonization, indigenous people have always been marginalized; have been placed “outside” society. In this
context, realities such as “racial segregation”,“oppression”, “violence”, “subordination”, and even their
remarkable exclusión from the “social contract”, are central topics in the discussion on migration and
indigenous women in a global world where identities are constantly being reconfigured. Vulnerability and
defenselessness are feed-backed by the intersection of gender, ethnicity, poverty and the new condition of
migrant, which stigmatize indigenous women as others, as outsiders. These factors mark the difference
between the nation-state citizenship and the lack of civil status of migrants. In addition, migrant
stereotypes are socially constructed by media and political discourses as a big threat to national security. In
this sense, the barriers that these women come against when trying to reach their goal must be unveiled,
recognized and accepted in the foreign country, in spite of their gendered and race-marked body. In order to
analyze the urgent need to make indigenous women visible in the migration context, we first need to scan
the numerous types of interdisciplinary violence that partake in the process; secondly, we must try to
understand how the ethnic and gendered prejudice affects transnational migration; and finally, we must
detect the consequences that make indigenous women more and more vulnerable.

This thesis explores how nineteenth century Métis concepts of family and community have found expression in post 1930s urban development, governance and political activism. In this study, genealogical methods and participant interviews have been used to examine the social, economic and political role of women in 19th century Métis families and communities in order to determine the extent to which these traditional roles were carried forward into an urban context prior to World War II. Based on this research, it was concluded that female kinship relationships were central in structuring and determining the bounds of this Métis community despite economic changes, community movement, physical relocation and political upheaval in both traditional and contemporary contexts. By organizing in ways that were familiar and consistent with past practices, urban Métis women in the early twentieth century had the opportunity and flexibility to informally politicize community issues and recruit organization participants. Over time, the political role played by women evolved and they began to take leading roles in the day-to- day operation of programs and services. By the 1960s-70s, urban Métis women began to formally assert their political will and move from “behind the scenes” into a more public leadership roles. Throughout this evolution, concepts of family, kinship and tradition remained the core organization concept for this community. Through the expression of these 19th century traditions, Métis women have
made a significant contribution to post-1930 urban development, governance and political activism.

En el libro se presentan los efectos del cambio climático en territorios indígenas y en particular para las mujeres indígenas. De igual manera, desde las voces de mujeres indígenas se planten las maneras de conocer y las perspectivas que tienen frente al cambio climático.

MULHERES INDÍGENAS DA TRADIÇÃO é um livro fotográfico, fruto da pesquisa sobre as mulheres indígenas em Pernambuco, realizada por pesquisadoras de onze povos no estado de Pernambuco. Cada povo indicou uma mulher para se dedicar à escuta, à observação e ao registro das trajetórias de guerreiras que fazem parte da resistência indígena no Nordeste. O livro tem como objetivo apresentar uma breve trajetória de vida das mulheres que são reconhecidas pelo saber tradicional em seus povos e possuem significativa contribuição nas mais diversas áreas da
vida coletiva. Homenageá-las e dar visibilidade as suas trajetórias de luta, muitas vezes silenciadas, ou pouco referenciadas nas narrativas e registros sobre as lutas indígenas no Nordeste brasileiro, é a  intencionalidade política da pesquisa.
Esta ação foi apoiada pela Secretaria de Cultura de Pernambuco com o projeto Funcultura n° 1069/12 intitulado “Mulheres Indígenas da Tradição”. Este projeto foi realizado entre os anos de 2013
e 2015 e propiciou a articulação e mobilização do movimento de mulheres em volta da ideia de homenagear as “guerreiras indígenas”, bem como garantiu a realização de encontros e formações direcionadas
às mulheres indígenas que se tornaram pesquisadoras de seus próprios povos.

Filming Feminist Frontiers/Frontier Feminisms is a transnational qualitative study that examines ten landmark feature films directed by women that re-imagined the frontiers of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S through a feminist lens. As feminist feature films they countered Eurocentric and masculinist myths of white settlement and expansionism in the grand narrative tradition.  Produced between 1979 and 1993, these films reflect many of the key debates that animated feminist scholarship between 1970 and 1990.  Frontier spaces are re-imagined as places where feminist identities can be forged outside white settler patriarchal constructs, debunking frontier myths embedded in frontier historiography and the Western. A central way these filmmakers debunked frontier myths was to push the boundaries of what constitutes a frontier.  Despite their common aim to demystify dominant frontier myths, these films do not collectively form a coherent or monolithic feminist revisionist frontier.  Instead, this body of work reflects and is marked by difference, although not in regard to nation or time periods.  Rather the differences that emerge across this body of work reflect the differences within feminism itself.  As a means of understanding these differences, this study examines these films through four central themes that were at the centre of feminist debates during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. These are: female authorship, motherhood and the maternal, paid labour and the economy, and sexuality.  The study examines whether these women’s frontier films were successful at pushing the feminist agenda forward.  In order to answer this question, this study uses an interdisciplinary method of analysis deploying feminist theory, feminist historiography, frontier historiography, film theory, and genre theory. The films in this study are: Gillian Armstrong’s My Brilliant Career (1979), Tracey Moffatt’s Bedevil (1993), Sandy Wilson’s My American Cousin (1985), Anne Wheeler’s Loyalties (1986), Norma Bailey’s The Wake (1986), Merata Mita’s Mauri (1988), Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993), Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991), Nancy Kelly’s Thousand Pieces of Gold (1991), and Maggie Greenwald’s The Ballad of Little Jo (1993).

Like other communities, Indigenous peoples must adapt to climate-induced ecological variations like sea level rise, glacier retreat and shifts in the habitat ranges of different species. In ongoing conversations on climate change, some Indigenous women articulate how seriously they take the specific responsibilities they perceive themselves to have within the systems of responsibilities that matter to their communities. Such responsibilities can range from acting as custodians and teachers of local ecological knowledge to acting as conveners of political movements aiming at respectful co-existence with neighbors. For these Indigenous women, the responsibilities that they assume in their communities can expose them to harms stemming from climate change and other environmental changes. Yet at the same time, their commitment to these responsibilities motivates them to serve as enablers of adaptation and mitigation. efforts.
This paper offers a starting point for the following positions: Some Indigenous women have their own unique capacities for collective action that advance adaptation and mitigation. Non-Indigenous parties’ political responsibilities should involve deferring to Indigenous women’s own knowledges of and motivations for collective action. Deference can be expressed through political institutions that bolster the conditions needed to support Indigenous women’s collective actions. In many cases, deference  is incumbent on Indigenous national governments and political organizations. Further work beyond this paper should seek to further clarify the political reforms needed to support Indigenous women’s collective agencies for adapting to and mitigating climate change.

El texto  parte de cómo las transformaciones ambientales, el cambio climático, la pérdida de las luchas por la sustentabilidad desde abajo
biodiversidad y los procesos extractivos han afectado a los territorios
indígenas y sus prácticas y modos de vida, en particular los de las mujeres indígenas. Frente a estos procesos, los pueblos indígenas demandan el reconocimiento de una política cultural, territorial y ambiental indígena, en particular en lo relacionado a la soberanía alimentaria. Para dar cuenta de dichos procesos, su artículo se centra en las propuestas de las mujeres indígenas Pasto y Kamëntsá Biyá en Colombia y destaca las nociones indígenas sobre lo territorial y la naturaleza, así como la manera en que las mujeres indígenas permiten la continuidad de la vida, como una propuesta de cuidado del cuerpo, el territorio y lo no-humano. El artículo brinda ejemplos de sus nociones de cuidado, presenta propuestas y alternativas en torno a la soberanía alimentaria y a las semillas de resistencia —asociadas a los conocimientos y lugares específicos— y plantea otras nociones de defensa territorial que a su vez dan paso a nociones de autodeterminación ambiental. De esta forma, reflexiona sobre sus aportes acerca de las transformaciones de la naturaleza y sobre cómo sus nociones y prácticas relacionadas con el territorio y la naturaleza (que se asumen como actores vivos con capacidad de acción) implican nociones de cuidado que obligan a repensar discusiones en torno a la sustentabilidad.

In the 1790s, Mary Doxtator along with other Stockbridge Indian girls were sent away from their home in New Stockbridge, New York to Philadelphia where they were boarded in Anglo homes and taught to read, write, and perform Anglo domestic arts. Upon her return to New York, Doxtator and other women set about utilizing the tools available to them to assist in community survivance. Industry via the spinning wheel was their chosen path toward self-determination and community uplift. Doxtator herself played an active role advocating for land retention, ultimately becoming the tribe’s attorney and land agent in 1824. This paper explores the ways in which Native female power was expressed in communities where women had long been turned away from the fields. As educators, reformers, advocates, and manufacturers of textiles, these women not only aided their kin relations in survival, but also participated in broader trends significant to all women, Native and non-Native alike. It is the goal of this paper to contextualize the experiences of Stockbridge women within the overlapping Native and Anglo worlds in which they lived.

This article examines the depoliticization of violence against women in indigenous communities. It argues that there is a pressing need to examine the ways in which gendered
violence is explained, addressed and often sanctioned in indigenous communities.
The article draws on Crenshaw’s concept of political intersectionality and examines responses to gendered violence in indigenous communities through two groups: Aboriginal women in Canada and Sa´mi women in Scandinavia.

Al abordar la legislación electoral de los estados de la Tercera Circunscripción Plurinominal,  Inés Castro centra su atención en tres elementos: la forma en que se han adoptado los preceptos de equidad de género e igualdad de oportunidades contenidos en los instrumentos internacionales suscritos por nuestro país; las disposiciones relativas a las cuotas de género para los partidos políticos;  y la existencia de normatividad relativa a los derechos políticos de los indígenas. La autora señala avances incipientes en los primeros dos temas, en tanto
que observa un atraso significativo en lo que corresponde a los indígenas. En todos apunta la necesidad de generar mecanismos que obliguen a los actores políticos involucrados a pasar del discurso a la realidad.  Al respecto, Inés Castro alude a las relaciones de poder que subyacen a la negociación entre partidos para acordar un código electoral y a los procedimientos de selección de candidatos. En ambos casos —subraya la autora— se ponen en juego relaciones de género que impactan el resultado normativo. La autora ubica como uno de los retos inmediatos la inclusión de cuotas de género en las candidaturas correspondientes al ámbito municipal, en aquellos lugares
donde esto aún no ocurre, pues considera que éstas representan un mecanismo útil para generar cambios sociales de largo alcance.

Resumen. Este artículo nace de una investigación doctoral que analiza las re-formula-ciones identitarias de las mujeres indígenas desplazadas en el contexto de conflicto armado en Colombia. El objetivo del mismo es mostrar cómo la condición de víctimas trae consigo estrategias de resistencia, creaciones y cuestionamientos. Desde las circunstancias que viven muestro cómo las identidades de género, etnia y desplazada son base de vulneración de sus derechos. Asimismo, las mujeres indígenas, como sujetos activas, re-formulan sus identidades tras pasar por situaciones de ruptura de las mismas. Se posicionan como agentes de cambio, generadoras de nuevos discursos y prácticas. A través de estas realidades advertimos las redes y movilizaciones que las mujeres indígenas están llevando a cabo, así como las reflexiones y cuestionamientos que se dan desde el activismo y el campo teórico. Palabras clave: identidad de género, identidad étnica, violencia, resistencia, discursos propios. Abstract. This article builds on my doctoral research which analyzed reformulations of identity of displaced indigenous women in the context of armed conflict in Colombia. The objective is to show how the condition of victims bring about resistance strategies, creations and questions. Focusing on the case of displaced indigenous women, I show how identities of gender, ethnicity and displacement are based on infringement of their rights. Furthermore, indigenous women, as active subjects, reformulate their identities after going through situations of rupture. They position themselves as agents of change, generating new discourses and practices. Through these realities we advise the networks and mobilizations that indigenous women are carrying out, as well as reflections and questions which they make, both from the perspectives of activism and theory.

El presente artículo analiza las violencias sufridas por las mujeres indígenas situadas en el escenario de conflicto armado colombiano y desplazadas forzosamente. En este artículo trata-remos de poner de manifiesto, por un lado, que dichas violencias están relacionadas con sus identidades de género y etnia. Por otro, que la condición de víctimas trae consigo estrategias de resistencia. Y finalmente, que desde los discursos y prácticas que están generando se posicionan como agentes de sus propios cambios, politizando la diferencia y re-formulando sus identida-des de género y etnia. PALABRAS CLAVE: identidad de género, identidad étnica, violencia, resistencia. Violence and Resistance: Displaced Indigenous Women from Colombia This paper tackles the violence perpetrated against indigenous women who are situated in the Colombian conflict, and who are forcefully displaced. We argue that, on the one hand, this violence is related to their gender and ethnic identities. On the other, that the condition of victimhood in these situations brings with it new strategies of resistance. Finally, indigenous women generate new discourses in which they take a position as agents of their own changes, politicize the difference, and re-formulate their gender and ethnic identities.

View at: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/356762576/a31ebe5955/privacy

password: cotton 2020

Video and transcript. This is a collaborative community project done with Wauja women of Central Brazil, who are teaching a master class on the art of spinning cotton. Video was recorded entirely in the Arawakan language, with no translators present to distract and inhibit the elders. The women produced seven recordings during this session; this is only one of them.

Soon after, a young Wauja scholar used these ethnographic recordings as one of the primary source materials in his anthropology Master's Thesis. In 2022, he will be attending the University of Campinas as the first Wauja PhD candidate. He plans to write his thesis on cotton in Wauja culture.

Este documento recopila los resultados de la investigación, contemplando cuatro apartados de análisis: en primer lugar la explicación del diseño metodológico y conceptual propuesto para la producción de los dos estudios de caso propuestos, lo que implico indagar en las perspectivas metodológicas de la investigación (interseccionalidad, diáspora, etnicidad, indigenidad, enfoques biográficos, memoria y por último un análisis especifico de indigenidad nasa). El segundo apartado comuneras luchando por un cabildo, se realiza la construcción del caso de las mujeres nasa del Cabildo Indígena de Bogotá (teniendo en cuenta el contexto del proceso y las memorias de cuatro comuneras participantes del proceso.
En el tercer apartado se elabora la construcción de los procesos organizativos de las mujeres nasa de la Asociación de Cabildos del Norte del Cauca (teniendo en cuenta el contexto de emergencia de la asociación, las experiencias del Programa Mujer de la ACIN, de la Tulpa de la Mujer Indígena y el Territorio, del Movimiento Juvenil Álvaro Ulcué, y del Programa familia de la ACIN). El último apartado indaga en la posible consolidación de dos formas de gubernamentalidad para el caso de las mujeres nasa, una de género y una multicultural, a la par de la relación de las mujeres nasa respecto a las mismas. Los apartados integran el total de la investigación y se concluyen en dos partes, tras realizar los estudios de caso, y al final del análisis sobre políticas como tecnologías de gobierno.

La épica siempre ha sido considerada como un género masculino. La emergencia de una identidad de grupo, masculina, blanca, aristócrática, cristiana, se suele hacer a partir de la representación y la exclusión del Otro, singular ficticio, que abarca en realidad una diversidad conjugada en etnia, origen, sexo, género, religión y en grados de ficción/historicidad. Efectivamente, en la épica histórica que relató la conquista, fuera de los conquistadores largamente enumerados y de los monarcas o caciques indígenas, pocos personajes gozan de una singularización histórica. El Otro, indio y femenino, hace una entrada comedida en la historia, en lo particular, en la verdad (histórica y cristiana). Es el caso de las intérpretes, la Malinche y la India Catalina, únicas mujeres indígenas históricas en aparecer integradas en la trama narrativa y en la empresa conquistadora en los poemas de Lasso de la Vega (Cortés valeroso y Mexicana, Mexicana), de Juan de Castellanos (Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias) y de Saavedra Guzmán (El peregrino indiano).

The Sámi self-determination discourse has always been state-centric in its tendency to invoke the central role of the Nordic states in shaping national policies and legislation on Sámi rights. This article examines the meaning of Sámi self-determination from the perspective of Sámi women: how do Sámi women understand the concept, how do they evaluate the current efforts to implement self-determination by Sámi political institutions and what kind of forms their socio-political participation takes in contemporary Sámi society. It argues that Sámi self-determination is often understood in relational terms as discussed by Iris Marion Young.

Over the last two decades, Latin America has witnessed a massive expansion of resource extraction. One of the most significant countermovements to emerge out of this context in Ecuador features a strong base and leadership of indigenous women from the Amazon. In their collective effort to resist extractivism, Amazonian women have drawn from elements of ecofeminist discourse and, in the process, situated their own claims within the broader indigenous territorial struggle. Ecofeminism has been transformed through this allyship as well, becoming more inclusive of indigenous women's perspectives. To shed light on these complex relationships, this article applies the framework of "partial connection" from feminist anthropology. It shows how postcolonial encounters between the state, missionaries, environmental activists, and indigenous communities in the Amazon carved out unique spaces for indigenous self-organization and politics. The historical analysis of such spaces, I argue, is crucial for grasping the allyship between Amazonian women and ecofeminists today. Rooted in a combination of positions that are partially, asymmetrically, and ambiguously connected, the allyship between Amazonian women and ecofeminists is best understood as a form of partially connected relationship.

In October 2013, a group of indigenous women from the southeastern Ecuadorian Amazon started the “March of Life”. This 250-km long march – organized and led entirely by female representatives from the Achuar, Shuar, Zapara, Kichwa, Shiwiar, Andoa, and Waorani indigenous organizations – proceeded from the Amazonian city of Puyo to the capital city of Quito and was a response to the 11th oil licensing round in their territories. After this symbolic and arduous march, Amazonian women have continued to organize as a network and as active members of their indigenous organizations against renewed attempts by the government of licensing their territories to extractive companies, making their voices heard in the national media and their proposals more visible within the broader spectrum of environmental, anti-extractive and popular feminist struggles in Ecuador. This is the case of their proposal to declare the Amazon a “Living Forest,” publicly presented to the Ecuadorian National Assembly...

Esta es una reseña crítica sobre el libro "Memorias del caso peruano de esterilización forzada" (2014), en el que la artista e investigadora social Alejandra Ballón compila cuatro ensayos que abordan el caso de las esterilizaciones forzadas ocurridas en Perú durante el Programa Nacional de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar (1996-2000) del gobierno del ex presidente Alberto Fujimori, ofreciéndonos diferentes perspectivas sobre un tema que hasta hoy genera debate y es controvertido en la esfera política pública peruana.

Abstract This is a critical review of the book "Memoirs of the Peruvian case of forced sterilization" (2014), in which the artist and social researcher Alejandra Ballon compiles four essays that address the case of forced sterilizations occurred in Peru during the National Program Reproductive Health and Family Planning (1996-2000) under the government of President Alberto Fujimori, offering different perspectives on an issue that has been hotly debated so far in either the political and public Peruvian sphere.