Átaw Iwá Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit: The Importance of Ichishkíin Language in Advancing Indigenous Feminist Education

Abstract

290 Feminist Studies 45, no. 2/3. © 2019 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Michelle M. Jacob, Virginia R. Beavert, Regan Anderson, Leilani Sabzalian, and Joana Jansen Átaw Iwá Ichishkíin Sínwit: The Importance of Ichishkíin Language in Advancing Indigenous Feminist Education Native and Indigenous feminisms (hereafter Indigenous feminisms) have made important interventions into social theory as well as historic and contemporary activism. Although Indigenous feminisms should be viewed as plural “rather than a singular feminism,”1 Indigenous feminist scholarship has collectively addressed the need to attend to Indigenous women’s concerns and aspirations. Indigenous feminist analyses have challenged other feminist movements to take seriously Indigenous women’s concerns for “personal and Tribal sovereignty.”2 They have argued that Indigenous studies and Indigenous movements must account for Indigenous women’s gendered experiences with colonialism, thereby productively addressing both the erasure of white patriarchal colonialism within Eurocentric feminism and the erasure of gendered and sexual oppression within Indigenous theory.3 1. Reyna Ramirez, “Race, Tribal Nation, and Gender: A Native Feminist Approach to Belonging,” Meridians 7, no. 2 (2007): 33. 2. Kate Stanley, “Thoughts on Indian Feminism,” in A Gathering of Spirit: A Collection by North American Indian Women, ed. Beth Brant (Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1988), 214. 3. Aileen Moreton-Robinson, “Towards an Australian Indigenous Women’s Standpoint Theory: A Methodological Tool,” Australian Feminist Studies 28, no. 78: 331–47; Leilani Sabzalian, “Curricular Standpoints and Native Feminist Theories: Why Native Feminist Theories Should Matter to Curriculum Studies,” Curriculum Inquiry 48, no. 3 (2018): 359–382; Maile Arvin, Eve Jacob et al. 291 Informed by Indigenous feminist analysis and activism, this article complements such scholarship by situating Indigenous feminist education as countering Eurocentric policies and practices in Western education , and more specifically, within the university setting.4 Indigenous feminist education is comprised of practices of cultivating Indigenous language learning while simultaneously meeting community goals of enhancing self-determination, strengthening intergenerational relationships , foregrounding Indigenous knowledges, and instilling responsibility and connection to place rooted in Tribal Elder pedagogy,5 among and for the benefit of all students. Our focus on Indigenous language education advances understandings of Indigenous feminist praxis: “Indigenous languages are critical to the recovery and continuance of Indigenous Knowledge because their structure and composition is designed to articulate Indigenous worldviews, values, conceptualizations, and knowledge.”6 Our work has been to revitalize Ichishkíin, an Indigenous language of the Columbia River Plateau Tribes in the Pacific Northwest, at the University of Oregon. This effort seeks to demonstrate the resilience and healing potential of Indigenous language education, to strengthen a relational and place-based conception of sovereignty,7 specifically Tuck, and Angie Morrill. “Decolonizing Feminism: Challenging Connections between Settler Colonialism and Heteropatriarchy,” Feminist Formations 25, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 8–34. 4. Teresa L. McCarty, “Schools as Strategic Tools for Indigenous Language Revitalization: Lessons from Native America,” in Can Schools Save Indigenous Languages? Policy and Practice on Four Continents, ed. Nancy H. Hornberger (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Teresa L. McCarty, Tamara Borgoiakova, Perry Gilmore, K. Tsianina Lomawaima, and Mary Eunice Romero, “Editors’ Introduction: Indigenous Epistemologies and Education —Self-Determination, Anthropology, and Human Rights,” Anthropology & Education Quarterly 36, no. 1 (2005): 1–7. 5. Amanda Holmes and Norma Gonzáles, “Finding Sustenance: An Indigenous Relational Pedagogy,” in Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World, ed. Django Paris and H. Samy Alim (New York: Teachers College Press, 2017): 207–224. 6. Leanne R. Simpson, “Anticolonial Strategies for the Recovery and Maintenance of Indigenous Knowledge,” American Indian Quarterly 28, no. 3–4 (2004): 377. 7. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, “The Place Where We All Live and Work Together: A Gendered Analysis of ‘Sovereignty,’” in Native Studies Keywords , ed. Stephanie Nohelani Teves, Andrea Smith, and Michelle H. Raheja (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2015): 18–24. 292 Jacob et al. for Ichishkíin Tribal peoples, and to illustrate a place- and community -based model that provides all students, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, an opportunity to value and learn from Indigenous languages and knowledges that honor the traditions and teachings of our Tribal Elders.8 We also argue for the benefits of Indigenous language education as a generative form of feminist...