Indigenous Feminism

When we discussed Ecofeminism in class a few weeks ago, I asked this question:

"How do we walk the fine line between honoring and learning from indigenous cultures and systems of knowledge, and appropriating that knowledge through acts of cultural piracy and "luxury spirituality?"

Angela wrote out a response to this question and some of you were interested in being able to re-read her answer, which was:

"I struggle with this question myself.  I think the best idea I can throw out there, which may or may not be the best way to think about it, is to take the knowledge that is offered freely and voluntarily and to hold that knowledge tentatively and with an open hand.  Since knowledge has been shared with you, it does not mean you "get it" or that you have a right to present it to others.  I think you have a responsibility to sit in that knowledge and get to know it, and absorb much before you speak.  I also think you hold a humble attitude about whose knowledge it is and when you share about it, you avoid speaking as if you know something that is not yours.  You share the product of your own meaning-making and you label and acknowledge that.  You hold the subjective nature of your response up."

I asked this same question of a couple of other friends, and their answers were very helpful so I'm posting them here for all of us to consider.

Victor: "Your question is a tricky one and there are no specific answers or perhaps myriad answers to the question, for me the important thing is how the information or knowledge is handled. First one must never lose sight of the origin of the knowledge and information that will always remain someone else’s. For example If non‐Native teachers are to use and tell Indigenous stories, they must begin a cultural‐sensitivity learning process that includes gaining knowledge of story‐telling protocol and the nature of these stories, the challenge for scholars, educators and students of Indigenous Knowledge is to find ways to engage with Indigenous information so that they are understood not in simplistic and stereotypic ways but as deep knowledge understood in complex relations to context. There is nothing simple in seeking ways of approaching in the correct way the delicate balance between Indigenous Knowledge, learning and cultural appropriation but for me as an Indigenous person one of the powerful ways for you as a Non-Indigenous student to be respectful and ethical is when you start questioning yourself, what are you doing with the knowledge that you are gaining and how is your approach to this knowledge. I think only you can really determine whether you truly are respectful or if your interest is a form of appropriation. The answer to your question, I think, lies heavily in your motivations and how you view Native Cultures.

- your approach to Native cultures is distorted by the racists views of the bloody savage or the noble savage?

- Do you acknowledge that there is no such thing as one Native culture–that this continent is one of many nations and peoples with unique cultures?

- Do you recognize modern-day Native people as real, living,breathing people and don't see them as part of a primordial, innocent past?

- Do you pay attention to what is going on in Native American reservations and communities TODAY? Do you know the realities of these reservations and communities? Do you acknowlege the way that colonization in this continent has harmed its people? Is your interest in the mythology of the Native American or the real Native American?

I am always a little wary when I witness people taking an obsessive interest in a culture that is not their own. My wariness stems from a realization of how easy it is to move from appreciation to appropriation

Why do you want to know about Native cultures? That is the question. And it is one we all–regardless of race–have to ask when we explore,study and are drawn to other cultures. So I constantly examine my motivations and so must you and everybody."

Mindy: "I have more questions to ask yourself then direct answers.  I think the main things we (and using this we as assuming you missy are also non-indigenous/colonizers, and apologize if through this I am ignoring histories, legacies of your family, community) need to think, and practice to walk this line is accountability, reciprocity, debt. How can we be accountable to people, lives, histories, struggles, resistances- many of whom we will never meet in person, or directly experience? Which means as well we can never fully understand, and yet that does not mean we do not try to understand. To understand that these knowledges are not ours for the taking-as 'our' history of being colonizers has allowed us to do. To not just continue a legacy of taking we need to create reciprocity in the present-and to the past, and understand-while actively intervening- in our historical and current debt for this taking. This is then how a practice in the present is important, and there is not one way to go about this, just as indigenous knowledge is heterogenous...

It is a fine line and daily self analysis, placed within particular social cultural, political history. The more I learn the more i see my own enactment of my privileges, my own continuation of colonial patterns. Thankful for allies, and building relationships outside of my particular history as to resist the world I was born into inherit!  (p.s. and will add to my first comment that I 'fail' (while critically thinking failure) daily at what I said is 'necessary' and yet in the failure, with' allies-people reciprocally committed to you unconditionally, who hold you accountable, change occurs- colonial patterns re-emerge/are engendered/shift-while still causing effects which then need to be accountable to-despite 'failure' and continued change with accountablity...and on and on)."

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think that talking about indigenous cultures/systems is a delicate balancing act.  I want to honor cultural beliefs and practices that I believe are far more sustainable, egalitarian and harmonious than most practices in my own culture--but I don't want to participate in reductive and oversimplified glamorizations based on generalizations that distill many different cultures into one.  I want to learn and study and respect without  being essentializing or condescending or tolerant of the "noble savage" trope."  I want to integrate holistic ideas and practices into my life but somehow avoid cultural piracy and the "luxury spirituality" (the "icing on a materialist cake") that Vandana Shiva writes about.

I would love to hear more ideas and suggestions about how to do all of these things at once!

Real Quick

I can hardly handle my facebook newsfeed lately.  As if the Planned Parenthood brouhaha last month wasn't enough.  As if the panels of male experts debating women's access to contraception wasn't enough.  As if laws required vaginal ultrasounds weren't enough.  As if Rush Limbaugh (in general, but specifically referring to Sandra Fluke) wasn't enough.  Today I saw that Arizona has advanced a bill that allows employers to fire women for using birth control, based on the employer's religious beliefs.  You know it's gotten bad when Fox News runs an article taking seriously the idea of a political war on women.


I've been thinking a lot about this sentence from Ong's article "Sisterly Solidarity:"

“Brackette Williams has argued that subordinated male agency seeks redemption through the ‘retraditionalization of wayward women’ by calling for the revival of domestic feminine virtues and for women’s protection from outside dangers.”  

Do you think we can interpret this recent politicization of women's health issues as a call for "retraditionalization of wayward women?"  What about the other calls for retraditionalization in the American context?  Who leads these calls, and who benefits from their implementation?  In what ways are women themselves gatekeepers and agents of retraditionalization?  Sometimes I think that women are the primary agents of retraditionalization (although I've had plenty of evidence lately to challenge that idea!)  But if so, what are the gendered dynamics around this process?

Postcolonial Feminism, Part 2

When we talked about postcolonial feminism in class, we used Chandra Mohanty's definition of colonialism as being “a relation of structural domination and a suppression—often violent—of the heterogeneity of the subject(s) in question.”  I love this definition and I think it really hits upon the two main elements of colonial practice, both in historical and neocolonial terms.


I've been thinking about the ways we suppress the heterogeneity of subjects--about the ways we insist upon hearing just one story and making it into Truth.  I've been thinking about this TED talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, where she talks about the danger of the single story and says, "The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.  They make one story become the only story."  In other words, they colonize.

I really want people to watch this talk.  And also, if you're looking for some good fiction, pick up her short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck or her novel Half of a Yellow Sun.  (I haven't read her first novel, Purple Hibiscus, but I'm sure it is wonderful too.)

I wrote 20 pages of notes and questions for our discussion on postcolonial feminism, and we only got to a few of them.  They have been on my mind again today as I've been following the conversation about Invisible Children's newest social media campaign, Kony 2012, which has been exploding all over facebook and twitter.  This is what I posted about the campaign on my facebook wall:

‎"Thanks to everybody who is posting the #KONY2012 video and sparking conversation about interconnected conflicts in Central Africa! Let's keep the spotlight on the region; let's keep talking about it; but let's also take the opportunity to deepen our understanding of these conflicts. My 2cents on the video is that it is doing a marvelous job at sparking conversations, but that it provides inadequate context to understand the regional security vacuum in which Kony operates and what kinds of global political/economic structures are connected to the propagation of armed conflict in the region. I also think that the solution (of increased US military involvement in the region) advocated in the video is problematic on a lot of levels.

And one other thing that I want us to talk about more, here on facebook or in person. How do we as Americans understand and conceptualize ourselves in a global context? In order for us to understand ourselves as liberated, empowered agents, do we have to first construct an Other that is imprisoned, powerless and always acted upon? Is this why we rely so heavily on the victim/perpetrator dichotomy (when in real life, that dichotomy is very often broken down)? And what are the real-world implications of constructing our conversations in this way?

My take on this is that we tend to crave narratives in which we as Americans are both guiltless and powerful. We like narratives that don't connect our lifestyles or consumption patterns to global inequality, but that do "empower" us to believe that we have the verve and voice to change the world for the better. I don't think this is the best way to construct a narrative, and I don't think it's the truest way. Let's talk more about truer narratives.


So in addition to the factual errors, I'm also really concerned about the oversimplified narrative that this campaign rests upon. Partly because oversimplified narratives result in bad policy. And also because the oversimplified good guy-bad guy narrative, the victim-perpetrator dichotomy, is linked to the formulation of Western identity. It allows us to ignore our own complicity in the creation of global inequalities even as we nurture our savior complexes. 

On the other hand, this campaign has sparked an internet conversation about Central Africa on a level I haven't seen in a while. So that is a good thing. Let's keep talking and keep evaluating how we are situated in this.

Multicultural Feminism

I loved this week's readings by Gloria Anzaldua and bell hooks.  It's hard to choose just one topic to write about because there are so many important ideas in the readings for the week.  hooks' book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, is so interesting and provocative, and her ideas stretch me and occasionally make me a little uncomfortable because of the implications if she is right--which is a feeling I like.

One really interesting quote from the book is this:

“Women are the group most victimized by sexist oppression.  As with other forms of group oppression, sexism is perpetuated by institutional and social structures; by the individuals who dominate, exploit, or oppress; and by the victims themselves who are socialized to behave in ways that make them act in complicity with the status quo.  Male supremacist ideology encourages women to believe we are valueless and obtain value only by relating to or bonding with men.  We are taught that our relationships with one another diminish rather than enrich our experience.  We are taught that women are ‘natural’ enemies, that solidarity will never exist between us because we cannot, should not, and do not bond with one another.  We have learned these lessons well.  We must unlearn them if we are to build a sustained feminist movement.  We must learn to live and work in solidarity.  We must learn the true meaning and value of Sisterhood.” 


I like how this quote lays out the various levels on which sexism functions: institutionally and interpersonally, and men and women can all be perpetrators of it.  I think it's interesting how she draws upon the cultural idea that women are women's worst enemies, which unfortunately is an idea that has a lot of traction in our society and forms a significant barrier to both sisterhood and political solidarity.  We've all heard the essentialist assertions: women are catty, women are judgmental, women just backstab other women all the time.  I obviously don't believe this based on my own personal experience, but the prevalence of the cultural idea makes me think: If women can't be friends with women, and women can't be friends with men, who am I supposed to be friends with?!


If anyone out there is reading this blog, can you tell me what you think about this idea?  If you are a woman, did you go through a stage in your life (as I did) where you felt you did not know how to form bonds and emotional connections with women?  Where do you think you learned this?  And did you/how did you re-learn the art of forming sisterhoods?  And if you are a man, how do you react to this quote?