Young Indigenous Women Research Articles

Depicting areas of indigenous Australian women’s subjugation under imperialism: An indigenous feminist study of Jack Davis's No Sugar and Eva Johnson's Murras

This study aims to examine the portrayal of the oppression of Indigenous women in post-colonial drama focusing on themes of sexual violence, enforced sterilization and the Stolen Generation as depicted in Davis's No Sugar and Johnson's Murras. A qualitative analysis of these plays reveals the intertwining of sexual exploitation with colonial and imperial conquest. Rape and sexual abuse of Indigenous women are seen as metaphors for land exploitation and political subjugation. The findings of the study indicate a systemic violation of Indigenous women's rights. Indigenous women are sexually assaulted in both Murras and No Sugar which demonstrates imperialist control over their bodies. Another theme that develops is forced sterilization as shown in Murras in which indigenous young women are made sterile without their consent, symbolising a greater assault on aboriginal culture. The trauma of the Stolen Generation is outlined in both plays depicting the forced removal of Indigenous children from their families, severing cultural and familial bonds and originating a generational identity crisis. The preservation of Indigenous identity through women’s stories and traditional practices emerges as a significant aspect of resistance against colonial oppression. The selected plays underscore the role of Indigenous women in sustaining and transmitting cultural narratives and practices which is essential for preserving Indigenous identity and spirit. The findings of the research need a more in-depth understanding of the historical and ongoing oppression of indigenous women as well as a need for reparative justice.

Indigeneity at the Limits of Transculturation: Decolonial Aesthetics in Claudia Llosa's The Milk of Sorrow

Abstract: Elaborating decolonial and intersectional methods, aesthetics has developed rich tools for tackling power differences. A philosophical question arises about the nature of gendered embodied experience and materiality: How to comprehend the cultural field if it is at once a site of heinous expropriation and violence and one of vital social and political possibility? This essay explores this question through a reading of Claudia Llosa's film The Milk of Sorrow ( La teta asustada ) (2009). The film, we show, reworks racial, gendered, and colonial logics and supplants a model of transculturation, magical realism, and syncretism and its attendant figuration of resistance by a cultural vision of a web of multivalent, pluri-directional aesthetic promises and threats. Thus it presents a young Indigenous woman as a contemporary decolonial actor who, in encounter with popular culture and the global marketplace, renders memory livable and opens up unforeseen futures for her young town and country. We signal the implications for the positioning of the decolonial feminist spectator or culture maker and for a decolonial aesthetics. Aesthetic existence at the intersection of oppression and liberation, although impure and troubled, functions as a bountiful font of feminist energy and sustenance and a site of communal caring and imagination.

Wash Away Your Sins: Indigenous and Irish Women in Magdalene Laundries and the Poetics of Errant Histories

The history of Magdalene laundries in Ireland is well-documented. Magdalene laundries also existed in the U.S., but their existence and impact are less widely known. In 1914, several young Indigenous women were sent from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to the House of the Good Shepherd in Reading, Pennsylvania as punishment for perceived behavioral infractions. Placing Indigenous and Irish women's experiences of forced confinement into conversation with one another, this article calls for a more capacious understanding of the legacy of the U.S. federal boarding school system and the carceral institutions that comprised the settler apparatus.

A Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling Analysis of Early Fertility, Knowledge and Behaviors among Indigenous Young Women in Guatemala

Despite that Guatemala has health inequality among non-indigenous and indigenous women, adolescent fertility has been scarcely studied. This study investigates the mechanism of early fertility among indigenous women aged 20-29 using data from the Guatemalan Demographic Health Survey 2014–2015 (N=8,110). Partial least squares structural equation modeling analysis (PLS-SEM) were conducted in among indigenous women in urban area (UI) or rural area (RI) and non-indigenous women in rural area (RN) to examine the associations between socioeconomic variables, mediators (knowledge and attitudes toward early pregnancy prevention) and an outcome (early fertility). Results showed that geographical difference had stronger influence than ethnicity. Early fertility in RI is influenced by more factors than UI and RI, such as media exposure, attitudes and knowledge on pregnancy prevention, contraceptive use, in addition to education and risky sexual behaviors. Having better knowledge on contraceptive methods did not reduce risky sexual behaviors. Further discussion on elaboration of variables measuring the actual decision-making related to risky sexual behaviors are suggested.

Decolonizing, Indigenizing, and Making Space for Indigenous Girls Visiting York University

Abstract We examine the possibilities for Indigenization afforded by a visit from the girls’ group, Young Indigenous Women's Utopia (YIWU), to York University. Through classroom presentations, workshops, and a book launch, the girls shared their knowledge, perspectives, culture, and art, challenged stereotypes, and inspired university community members. The visit encouraged local students and faculty to find innovative ways to disrupt prevailing colonial norms by employing strategies such as public workshops, the Alternative Campus Tour and curating exhibits so as to integrate Indigenous knowledge, histories, and epistemologies. In this article, we explore the transformative potential of such encounters and emphasize the imperative to prioritize Indigenous knowledge systems and empower Indigenous girls in educational realms.

“There is no room for me, for a Hawaiian, in science”: Rightful presence in community science

AbstractThis paper shares the experiences, engagement, and struggle of one young Indigenous Hawaiian woman as she grapples with her sense of disconnect with STEM while serving as a land protector on the Mauna Kea, the home of the Thirty Meter Telescope being built over the objection of the local Indigenous community. I examine her changing perspectives and connections to STEM through her engagement during a summer school enrichment class focused on science and technology learning in service of community goals. Findings indicate that her sense of agency and autonomy were greatly improved by engaging in a space where science and technology were tools serving her goals of protecting the Mauna Kea from further development.

Facial Fractures in Indigenous and Non-indigenous Populations of South Australia.

Maxillofacial trauma in indigenous populations is complex with sociocultural factors, access to health care, and poorer general health issues that impact outcomes. Assaults and road traffic accidents are disproportionately experienced by indigenous persons compared with non-indigenous. A retrospective review was conducted from January 2012 to January 2017 at the Women and Children's Hospital and Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide. All maxillofacial fractures that attended or were referred to the unit were included in this study. The primary objective was to analyze epidemiological trends of facial fractures and clinical outcomes in the South Australian indigenous and non-indigenous populations. Maxillofacial fractures in indigenous persons were less than in non-indigenous (31.2 versus 38.2y, P < 0.001) with 3.8 odds of a facial fracture. Assault was 2.9 times more likely to result in a facial fracture, falls 40.9% less likely, and sports 29.4% less likely compared with non-indigenous ( P < 0.001). Alcohol-related facial fractures had significantly higher rates [odds ratio (OR = 3.8)] compared with non-indigenous. Indigenous from most disadvantaged areas and very remote areas also had significantly higher odds of a facial fracture. Indigenous persons had higher operative rates (OR = 2.8), postoperative complications (OR = 3.1), and a 3.7-day mean difference for the length of stay (6.6 versus 2.9d, P < 0.001). Indigenous people are more likely to experience facial fractures from assault resulting in mandibular fractures, whereas non-indigenous people are likely to have sport or fall-related midface fractures. Young indigenous women from outer regional and very remote areas have greater odds of facial fractures caused by assault and alcohol with higher operative rates, postoperative complications, and extended length of stay.

Becoming Semi-wild

Abstract This article borrows Juno Salazar Parreñas's concept of the “semi-wild” as an entry point into an analysis of Malaysian Chinese author Zhang Guixing's novels Elephant Herd (1998) and Monkey Cup (2000). Set in Sarawak, both works feature a relatively simple plotline interwoven with an intricate web of flashbacks. More specifically, each work's primary plotline features an ethnically Chinese protagonist searching for a relative who has disappeared into the rainforest, while also becoming romantically interested in a young Indigenous woman whom he meets during his quest. In each case, a fascination with the relationship between humans and Sarawak's various “semi-wild” flora and fauna is paralleled by an attention to the relationship between the region's ethnic Chinese and its various Indigenous peoples—and particularly two subgroups of Sarawak's Dayak ethnicity, the “Sea Dayaks” (also known as the Iban) and the “Land Dayaks” (who are often simply called “Dayaks”). Each work uses a set of quasi-anthropomorphized plants and animals (including silk-cotton trees, Nepenthes pitcher plants, elephants, crocodiles, rhinoceroses, and orangutans) to reflect on humans' relationship to the local ecosystem, while simultaneously using Indigenous peoples to reflect on the way in which overlapping colonial legacies have shaped the region's sociopolitical structures.

In Good Relation: History, Gender, and Kinship in Indigenous Feminisms ed. by Sarah Nickel and Amanda Fehr (review)

Reviewed by: In Good Relation: History, Gender, and Kinship in Indigenous Feminisms ed. by Sarah Nickel and Amanda Fehr Sarah Deer (bio) In Good Relation: History, Gender, and Kinship in Indigenous Feminisms edited by Sarah Nickel and Amanda Fehr University of Minnesota, 2020 IN GOOD RELATION bridges the divide between activist sensibilities and academic interrogations by considering how Indigenous feminisms intersect with other academic and artistic principles. The book provides a fresh critique of the sometimes-fraught application of gender equity to the liberation of Native people. This anthology cultivates a fresh perspective on this topic due to the editors' selection of authors/artists, including junior scholars. The academic pieces are interspersed with contributions from artists, activists, and poets, making the anthology more widely accessible. The third section ("Multi-Generational Feminisms and Kinship") is exceptional. A synergy between Native women and Two-Spirit people's struggles is tied together by their relationships to people and places. Zoe Todd's stories of her great-grandmother, Caroline LaFramboise, who was a Métis matriarch, are inspiring. Parenthood and intergenerational conversations are explored in two pieces. Ojibway poet waaseyaa'sin Christine Sy in conversation with her teenage daughter Aja Sy explores the complexities in parenting a Native child who is also racially coded as Black, struggling to help her deal with anti-Black racism in both the white and Indigenous worlds. Omeasoo Wāhpāsiw's pregnancy and journey into parenthood forms the backdrop for an insightful conversation with her mother, Indigenous poet Louise Halfe. Lindsay Nixon explicates an "Indigenous Relational Aesthetics (IRA)" (196) as a specific Indigenous artistic method to bring Indigenous people back to a foundation of ethical love. Nixon applies the IRA within the context of a touring exhibition curated by Nation to Nation. Nixon challenges us to make space and resources for Indigenous artists "whose work represents the love that . . . Indigenous art is capable of embodying" (204). The first section, "Broadening Indigenous Feminisms," includes two chapters exploring historical events and two contemporary pieces challenging the typical approach to academic Indigenous feminisms. Madeline Rose Knickerbocker provides a historical analysis of the May 1976 Stó:lō occupation of Kw'eqwá:lith'á (Coqualeetz), a gendered cultural site that was subject to settler appropriation for over one hundred years. Stó:lō women initiated and led the occupation, which allowed Stó:lō women to reassert their power. Sarah [End Page 179] Nickel's contribution explores the nascent development of Native women's activism in Canada by tracing the development of Indian Homemakers' Clubs—a settler-colonial tactic to limit Native women's roles to cooking and cleaning. Although these clubs were initiated as a tool of colonialism, Native women transformed them into powerful Native women's organizations. Sámi scholar Astri Dankerstein, providing a thorough overview of Sámi feminism, explores how Nordic Indigenous people conceptualize gender and social inequities in ways that are consistent with other struggles of Indigenous women across the world. Filmmaker Tasha Hubbard's conversation with the young Indigenous women who collaborated on Hubbard's documentary, 7 Minutes, explores how young Native women navigate violent colonial spaces in their everyday lives. The second section, Queer and Two-Spirit Identities, invites the reader to engage in ongoing dialogues about how the recent revitalizations of the concept of "traditional" gender roles in tribal communities has created exclusionary experiences for twenty-first-century Two-Spirit people. Kai Pyle reminds us that efforts to reclaim traditional roles often create a man-woman binary that can reinforce heteropatriarchy and thus further marginalize contemporary Two-Spirit people within their own communities. Two-Spirit scholar Chantal Fiola takes the reader on her journey as a Two-Spirit person who is deeply immersed in Anishinaabe culture and ceremonies, highlighting the influence of four prominent Two-Spirit activists and scholars whose writings and other contributions have helped her to find solace and acceptance of herself as a Two-Spirit intellectual. Aubrey Jean Hanson's contribution links sovereignty and the erotic by analyzing Chrystos's 1988 poem "Ya Don Wanna Eat Pussy" in the context of a twenty-first-century Two-Spirit erotic ethic, providing a cogent argument that Indigenous feminisms must "honour the erotic as a site of sovereignty...

Unhomed at Home: A Postcolonial Reading of Sherman Alexie’s “The Search Engine”

“The Search Engine” is a short story by Native American writer Sherman Alexie. The story depicts a quest undertaken by a young urban Indigenous woman to find an enigmatic Indian poet and, by extension, her own postcolonial self. This article proposes to read Alexie’s “The Search Engine” through the lens of postcolonial criticism to investigate the text’s anticolonialist ideology and approaches to resist the colonialist domination and deal with the postcolonial condition. The analysis reveals that the text presents an anticolonialist sentiments through marginal characters who are conditioned by the sense of unhomeliness as a result of their socioeconomic disadvantages. The text then subverts the colonialist ideology by secularising Christian terminologies and revisiting a literary canon from the point of view of the underclass. Finally, the text suggests that conflicting postcolonial identities can be reconciled and hybridised through respect and recognition at an individual level. Keywords: The Search Engine; Sherman Alexie; Native American; Postcolonialism; Colonialist Ideology

Critical Co-Design and Agency of the Real

This article explores research that was undertaken in a PhD project that investigated the creation and effectiveness of Critical Co-Design as a methodology. In particular, it explores how this methodology enabled successful outcomes from a workshop that was conducted with young Indigenous Australian women. The methodology and workshop aimed to create a platform for the researcher to work alongside Indigenous peoples in Australia in order to create mutually beneficial ways of working. Here, the authors reflect upon this research and postulate the importance of privileging Indigenous ways of knowing as a way of shifting approaches to design thinking. By examining the interconnectedness between these Indigenous ways of knowing and design thinking epistemology, the authors offer a paradigm for design thinking that engages the politics and the broader promise of (de)coloniality. This article reconfigures how design scholars and creative practitioners ascribe value to Indigeneity and practice by positioning Indigenous ontologies at the forefront of design thinking in general.

SIG Tel@ Amazônia: promoting dialogue between specialists and primary care professionals in maternal and child health/ SIG Tel@ Amazônia: promovendo a interlocução entre especialistas e profissionais de Atenção Básica na saúde materno-infantil

The Brazilian Indigenous Health Survey showed an increase in birth rates but also found an increase in deaths from malnutrition in early childhood. The study aimed to assess the effectiveness of an educational intervention involving primary care and childcare professionals' training on breastfeeding for indigenous infants. A cross-sectional panel-type descriptive study to assess breastfeeding interventions was conducted in two Special Indigenous Health Districts (SIHDs) of Amazonas State (Upper Rio Solimões and Upper Rio Negro) in 2018. The analysis compared the preintervention (January-June) and postintervention (September-December) periods in the two SIHDs and compared the intervention SIHDs with one SIHD that did not receive the intervention (Middle Rio Purus SIHD). As a result, there was a growth in lactation consultations after the intervention, with a 2,398% increase in Upper Rio Solimões and a 423% increase in Upper Rio Negro. Although the results show no evidence of early weaning, exclusive breastfeeding was ongoing for indigenous infants over six months of age. The participatory focus of the project's awareness-raising workshop guaranteed the health teams' active involvement. The Ministry of Health promotes training activities on the importance of counseling young indigenous women. However, the results show some uncertainty that this service is happening in the indigenous communities served by these SIHDs. Breastfeeding in indigenous peoples presents challenges that require specific public health interventions. Regarding the involvement of leaders and health professionals, there is an expectation of breastfeeding improvements in the region.

The Cedar Project: Relationship between child apprehension and attempted suicide among young Indigenous mothers impacted by substance use in two Canadian cities.

Indigenous leaders are gravely concerned over disproportionate representation of Indigenous children in Canada’s child welfare systems. Forced separation from children is deeply traumatizing for mothers and detrimental to the wellbeing of Indigenous families, communities and Nations. This study examined relationships between child apprehension and suicide attempt within a cohort of young Indigenous women impacted by substance use. We utilized data collected every 6 months (2008–2016) by the Cedar Project, an Indigenous-governed cohort study involving young Indigenous people who use drugs in British Columbia, Canada. Recent child apprehension was defined as having a child apprehended by the Ministry of Child and Family Development since last visit. Recurrent event Cox proportional hazards models estimated the independent effect of child apprehension on maternal suicide attempt. Among 293 participants, 78 (27%) reported 136 child apprehensions; incidence of first apprehension was 6.64 (95%CI: 5.25–8.29) per 100 person-years. Forty-seven (16%) participants reported 75 suicide attempts with an incidence of 4.00 (95%CI: 2.94–5.33) per 100 person-years. Participants who reported recent child apprehension (HR: 1.88, 95%CI: 1.00–3.55), had a parent attend residential school (HR: 4.12, 95%CI: 1.63–10.46), experienced recent sexual assault (HR: 4.04, 95%CI: 2.04–7.99), violence (HR: 2.54, 95%CI: 1.52–4.27) or overdose (HR: 4.97, 95%CI: 2.96–8.35) were more likely to attempt suicide. Participants who had a traditional language spoken in the home growing up were half as likely to attempt suicide (HR: 0.49, 95%CI: 0.23–1.01). Results suggest that child welfare systems in Canada perpetuate historical and intergenerational trauma among young Indigenous mothers. Indigenous self-determination over child welfare and culturally safe services are urgently needed to end cycles of child apprehension and support the wellbeing of families, communities and Nations.

Where are all the Girls and Indigenous People at IGSA@ND?

We adopt an autoethnographic approach to share critical reflections from the Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia girls’ group about our experiences attending the 2019 International Girlhood Studies Association conference at the University of Notre Dame (IGSA@ND). Moments of inspiration included sharing our work and connecting with local Indigenous youth. Challenging moments included feeling isolated and excluded since the only girls present at the conference were Indigenous people in colonial spaces. We conclude with reflection questions and recommendations to help future conference organizers and participants think through the politics and possibilities of meaningful expanded stakeholder inclusion at academic meetings.

Los cuerpos indígenas entre textos y silencios. El caso de una niña Aché

La formación de colecciones de restos humanos de distintas “razas”, hacia fines del siglo XIX y comienzos del XX, se asoció con la elaboración de un corpus documental que permitiese acreditar la autenticidad de los especímenes. En estos archivos constan datos individuales, como la procedencia, sexo, edad y el nombre, pero también sobre el colector o donante. A partir de las prácticas materiales y textuales efectuadas sobre una joven indígena Aché por el antropólogo alemán Robert Lehmann-Nitsche (1872-1938), jefe de la Sección Antropológica del Museo de La Plata (Argentina), este trabajo analiza las distintas estrategias para otorgar valor epistemológico al cuerpo indígena y la autoridad científica del propio investigador. Se discute además cómo algunas prácticas estuvieron inspiradas en instrucciones escritas o no escritas, pero a veces las motivaciones personales condujeron a interrumpir los procedimientos de producción de objetos de estudio, dejando “silencios” que solo recientemente pueden ser interpretados a la luz de los cuestionamientos que existen sobre los museos que albergan restos humanos.

Residential School Saint: The Life, Death, and Turbulent Afterlife of Rose Prince of the Carrier Nation

Rose Prince was a young Indigenous woman who lived during the first half of the twentieth century, spending most of her short life in a Catholic residential school near Fraser Lake, British Columbia, Canada. Shy and retiring in life, Rose's venerators believe that her understated devotion was rewarded by a postmortem miracle generally reserved only for God's greatest saints: incorruption. The Catholic hierarchy and Rose's Carrier people, though at odds on much else, are unanimous that the Lejac Indian Residential School unwittingly hosted a saint between its opening in 1922 and Prince's death in 1949, and the two groups seek together to honor her with an annual pilgrimage to her gravesite. But this fragile unanimity exists in dynamic tension with the two groups’ divergent interpretations of Prince's holiness, particularly as it pertains to the legacy of residential schools. For some within the Catholic hierarchy, Rose's sanctity provides a powerful justification for the much-critiqued assimilative educational system. For many Carrier, however, Prince is its starkest repudiation. For them, Rose was—and is—the heart of a heartless world, incarnating gentle compassion in a system that, while it trumpeted these Christian virtues, itself was notably lacking in them.

A Girl Activist Inventory

In March 2019, I had the pleasure of giving a talk at Peter Green College at the University of British Columbia that I called “The Politics and Possibilities of Girl-led and Youth-led Arts-based Activism to Address Gender Violence.” I wanted to highlight in particular the activist work of numerous groups of Indigenous girls and young women in a current project and the youth AIDS activist work of the Fire and Hope project in South Africa but I also wanted to place this work in the context of girls’ activism and youth activism more broadly. To do this I started out with a short activity called “Know your Girl Activist” during which I showed PowerPoint photos of some key girl and young women activists of the last few years, and asked the audience if they could identify them. The activists included two Nobel Prize Peace Prize winners, Malala Yousafzai (2014) and Nadia Murad (2018) along with Autumn Pelletier, the young Indigenous woman from Northern Ontario, Canada, well known for her work on water activism, and, of course, Greta Thunberg, now a household name but then, in 2019, already well known for her work on climate change activism. To my surprise only some of these activists were recognized, so, during the Q and A session, when I was asked if there is a history of girls as activists I could see that this question indicated clearly the urgent need for this special issue of Girlhood Studies which was only just in process then. Now, thanks to the dedication of the two guest editors of this special issue, Catherine Vanner and Anuradha Dugal and the wide range of superb contributors, I can point confidently to girls’ activism as a burgeoning area of study in contemporary feminism rooted in feminist history.

Passing the Talking Stick

Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia. 2019. Treaty 6 Traditional Homeland of the Metis People (Saskatoon, SK): Self-published with support from York University, McGill University, and Networks for Change and Well-being: Girl-led ‘from the ground up’ Policy Making to Address Sexual Violence in Canada and South Africa. To order a copy email yiwutopia@gmail.com.

Interlude: Little brother

In "interlude: little brother," a work of autobiographical criticism, Yurok-Diné scholar Natalie Knight recalls her experiences growing up in a white rural community in western Washington state with her two black siblings, all three children adopted by white parents. Knight felt an obligation to protect her little brother from the anti-Black racism he encountered on a daily basis at his school and in their town by exposing him to books, films, and music by Black creators whose perspectives reflected his experiences. Yet Knight, a young Indigenous woman, did not receive the same kind of guidance or protection. Through reading works by Black and Red Power Indigenous authors Knight found a way to put into words and contextualize her experiences. At the same time, the antagonisms between activist works and European traditions of philosophy, political science, and history, combined with the invisibility of Indigenous intellectual traditions in these discourses, created a profound sense of dissonance in Knight. Finding ways to navigate these traditions of thought within a framework of social justice energizes Knight's search for a language and critical framework that addresses her experiences and provides context for the histories she carries.

Daughters Inside: Toward a Theory of Structural Sexual Violence Against Girls Through Male Mass Incarceration.

Indigenous women constitute the fastest growing segment of the prison population. Women inside have disproportionately experienced childhood sexual abuse (CSA). A key protective factor against CSA is living with both biological parents. Imprisonment removes fathers from daughters' homes. Yet, the link between male incarceration and girls' risk of CSA remains unexamined. A quantitative exploration of this risk in Aotearoa New Zealand, indicates that the disproportionate incarceration of Māori fathers in the 1980s exposed Māori daughters to a 5.5 times greater CSA risk. A theory of sexual structural violence through male mass incarceration may help explain high CSA victimization rates among Māori girls and incarcerated women, and the sudden increase of young Indigenous women behind bars. More qualitative research is required to verify this empirical exploration.