Ancestral Lands and Genders

Abstract

The revitalization of Indigenous ways of knowing and being with land is central to addressing the devastating impacts of climate change. This article contributes to growing research in Indigenous Climate Change Studies by focusing on connections between ecology, sexuality, and gender. To track the histories of gendered violence for Two Spirit peoples is to also follow the marked wounds of land dispossession, excavation, and exploitation. Conversely, Two Spirit futures are deeply imbricated in not only surviving but also flourishing among post-apocalyptic conditions. Through socio-linguistic analyses of western animacy hierarchies and a historical analysis of colonial fables which casted the racialized-gendered other as monstrous, this article critiques popularized end-of-the-world discourses on climate change narratives. Alternatively, the article concludes by offering a reading of Indigiqueer speculative science fiction, gleaning methods of not only survival and resistance but also resilience amongst post-apocalyptic conditions. Ultimately, this paper argues that the revitalization of Indigenous genders is in-part linked to the present revitalization and protection of ecological life-worlds, centering Two Spirit knowledge at what settlers may fear to be “the end of the world.”