UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA WGS 498/GSJ 598

Assigned Resources (M4)

This report is a fairly fast read as it summarizes the themes of the 2012 Indigenous Dialogue on Intersectionality hosted by Sarah Hunt. (If you are short on time, I recommend you skip this reading in favor of the next two assigned resources).

As you read, pay attention to and/or consider the following questions raised during the dialogue:

• “How, then, do theories of intersectionality account for Indigenous worldviews or experiences, when the categories within intersectional theories are not rooted in Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies?” (Hunt 2012, 3)
• Is intersectionality only useful for analyzing Western categories of difference since Indigenous worldviews and languages do not use the same categorizations and have different understandings of relationality?

• Given the different ontological concepts of identity in  Western and Indigenous thought, does (or can) intersectionality address “the interconnectedness of all things … [t]ranslated into English, as ‘all my relations’, ‘weaving the strands’, and ‘a web of community relations’ that extends beyond humans to include other animals, the land, water, and all living things” (Hunt 2012, 4)?

• How can intersectionality account for the colonial imposition of Indigenous identities and genders (through legal measures such as the Indian Act, residential schools, and Christian teachings) that led to the erasure of two-spirits, introduced gendered binaries and hierarchies without further naturalizing these colonial impositions? 

• “How do intersectional frameworks account for the strengths, abilities and agency of people from marginalized groups? Are two-spirits understood as only marginalized or are they also understood as leaders, role-models and gifted with Indigenous teachings?” (Hunt 2012, 8)

• Is intersectionality primarily useful for “understanding how colonial systems or axes of power work together, but it is not needed to validate the inherent complexities of Indigenous knowledge” (Hunt 2012, 3)?

“If we listen to what water teaches us, we will think through our responsibilities to the water and not our right claims on the water.”

BIO

Joanne Barker is a Lenape professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University. She has published widely on Indigenous feminisms, specifically how gender intertwines with colonialism and imperialism in the United States and Canada. Her work on Indigenous sovereignty and self determination, including the article we are reading in this course, delves into the roles gender, sexuality, and feminism play. Her work is transnational and links historical and scholarly perspectives on the oppression and resistance of marginalized communities across national boundaries, including documentaries of Palestine.

The article assigned for this course is the introductory article for a 2019 issue of the scholarly American Indian Culture and Research Journal which publishes work on a wide array of Indigenous topics. In her article, Barker introduces readers to critical Indigenous feminist politics in the US and Canada using water as an analytic and method. Water, in its many forms, is used as an analytic – a framework or word to describe the function or structure of something – of Indigenous feminisms. Barker uses her own art as illustration of how water informs, instructs, holds care, holds and changes life, shapes the land, and shapes the relations between people living on and with the land.

For our course, we want to focus on her engagement with intersectionality, in light of some of the issues raised earlier in the 2012 “Dialogue on Intersectionality” while we explore the broader question of the relationship between intersectionality and Indigenous feminist thought and action in this Module.

I invite you to set as your reading purpose the task of figuring out Barker’s arguments vis a vis intersectionality, its limits and potential for Indigenous feminist thought and action. 

In her discussion of intersectionality, Barker initially rehearses the central tenets and foundational ideas of intersectionality through several foundational texts, most of which you have read so far are somewhat familiar with. 

As you read (pages 6 bottom to 13), focus on:

• What is Barker’s critique of including Indigeneity as one more category in intersectional analysis?
• What are her concerns about not accounting for territory in an intersectional analysis?
• What are her concerns with treating Indigeneity as “another race and ethnicity”?

WATCH

On July 24, 2020, Situated Knowledges: Indigenous Peoples and Place (SKIPP) and Intersections of Gender (IG), two Signature Areas of Research and Teaching at UAlberta, presented a virtual colloquium on “Relating Intersectionality and Indigenous-Engaged Research and Scholarship” with four University of Alberta researchers. Dr Kisha Supernant facilitated a discussion with guests:

1. Dr. Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez, Faculty of Arts, Department of Political Science: “Intersectionality, Indigenous Experiences and Multi Species Relationships” (starts at 2:00)
2. Dr. Bukola Salami, Faculty of Nursing: “Community engaged research and Intersectionality: Opportunities, Challenges and Rewards” (starts at 11:54)
3. Dr. Shirley Anne Tate, Faculty of Arts, Department of Sociology: “Decolonization and Antiracism in Universities in Settler Colonial States: Comparative Analyses of Canada, Sweden, Brazil and South Africa” (starts at 26:22);
4. Dr. Rebecca Sockbeson, Faculty of Education, Educational Policy Studies: “Red Hope Cipenuk: Making Space for Indigenous Knowledge Mobilization (IKM) & A Call for Anti-racist Conviction” (starts at 40:48)

As you watch the four presentations (each is about 12 to 14 minutes long):

• Take note of how each researcher engages and relates intersectionality and Indigeneity/Indigenous knowledge in their respective work. 

BIO

Quo-Li Driskill is Associate Professor of Women, Sexuality, and Gender Studies at Oregon State University. Their bio describes them as “Poet, scholar, and activist … whose poetry engages themes of inheritance and healing, and is rooted in personal (unenrolled) Cherokee Two-Spirit, queer, and mixed-race experience.”

*Important note: Since assigning this article, it has come to my attention that Driskill is accused of falsely claiming Indigenous ancestry, as well as of abusive behavior towards students. These are serious allegations that raise important and complex ethical issues for how to deal with their work. The simplest solution would be to erase this text from our syllabus. On the other hand, we might want to ask whether the contributions of Driskill’s work serve a greater purpose, such as elevating Two-Spirit critiques that must not be marginalized further by erasing their text. Or, is learning Driskill is a “pretendian” an opportunity to pause and consider more carefully the damage that falsely claiming Indigeneity does? 

This video on “What are Pretendians” may add to your considerations.

I am curious to see what you think about this thorny issue.