ETHN 101

Indigeneity and the

Politics of Gendered and
Sexual Difference
Week Four// Feb. 2
Sec. A03 // A04
Whose Land are We/You On?
❖ San Diego county has the most
Native reservations of any US
county (18, with 17 Tribal govts).

❖ The original stewards of this land

are the Kumeyaay/Kumiai people.

❖ Did you know?

➢ The Chancellor’s house sits atop a
literal Kumeyaay burial ground.
➢ The Anthro dept stole ancestral
remains for research and had to be
sued to repatriate them.

https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/kumeyaay/
Indigeneity
❖ What does Indigeneity mean?
➢ Various definitions, but many depend on a notion of prior/original occupancy.
➢ The political or cultural status of Indigeneity is site-specific and generally cannot be abstracted or
generalized.

❖ Many Indigenous scholars/activists claim they are not ‘minorities’ within a broader population. Then what?
➢ Ethno-linguistic groups (a ‘people’) which constitute sovereign nations occupied by settler states.
➢ ‘Native’ is a racialized category, but it is not a race.

❖ ‘Indigeneity’ and ‘Race’ are related but fundamentally different categories:

➢ Legal Status: Indigenous peoples are unique, legally-speaking, because of their status as nations within the
broader US. This endows certain cultural, legal, and religious rights, but autonomy and the preservation and
maintenance of those rights is tenuous

➢ Relationship to Recognition and Rights: Appealing to the state for rights (e.g., desegregation, legalizing gay
marriage, abortion, etc.) means legitimizing the authority of the state. Rather than a benevolent bestower of
rights, the settler state is a violent occupying force.
Settler Colonialism
❖ What is Settler Colonialism?
➢ A project of statecraft where one group (settlers) attempts to eliminate and replace Indigenous people(s).
➢ Primary objective is acquiring land to extract resources, markets, and labor.
➢ It is ongoing: not a single event or historical period, but a political order.
➢ It is structural: it shapes social, political, and economic relations.

❖ Related to but not the same as:

➢ Other forms of colonialism: generally an imposed form of governance focused on resource extraction &
labor exploitation without the desire to replace Indigenous inhabitants.
➢ Imperialism: the production or capture of extra-territorial markets via military, political, or cultural means.
➢ White supremacy: systemic racial hierarchies that maintain white domination.

❖ Genocide is often a central part of settlement.

➢ This occurs at multiple scales: corporeal (the body), cultural (way of life), political (autonomy & sovereignty),
social (kinship), linguistic, spiritual, ecological, and epistemic (knowledge-based).
➢ Canada, Mexico, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, and the US are all settler states.
Settler Colonialism, Indigeneity, and Land
❖ Notable differences in Indigenous and white-settler conceptions of land:
➢ Sovereignty as Responsibility versus Control: Rather than viewing sovereignty as a form of control or domination,
as is the case with settlers, Indigenous conceptions of land generally focus on relations and responsibilities. It is
not a unidirectional ‘right to land’ but rather a reciprocal system of rights between the land, humans, and
non-human life.

➢ Sources of Value and Meaning: Under settler conceptions, the value of land is based in forms of extraction and
use–land is a commodity, it must be made productive. Indigenous conceptions recognize the value of land as
coming from place-based practices which honor the livingness of land itself.

➢ Spirituality and Lifeways: Settler conceptions view land as inert, the territory upon which life happens. For
Indigenous peoples, land oftentimes has a spiritual dimension–one that not only recognizes the livingness of
land, but also rehearses creation stories that articulate land-based ethics.

❖ Property vs Land?
➢ Land becomes ‘property’ through a process of commodification–seeing land as a static entity external to us
which we may own, buy, and sell. This view prioritizes profit through extracting and ‘developing’ the land. It
provides a sense of entitlement–the land is there for us to use as we please.

➢ Land can also be defined expansively, as encompassing relations of interdependence among human and
non-human life. The mutual relationship must be fostered and respected. This provides a sense of
responsibility–we belong to the land, the land doesn't belong to us.
Settler Colonial Kinship
& Knowledge
❖ What is notable about the way
Nizhóni’s adoptive family thinks of or
talks about the reservation and her
biological family?
➢ Stereotypes about danger and What film devices are employed to represent
alcoholism. different relationships (between knowledge,
community, family) in these scenes?
Top: Missionary/joke scene (29m)
❖ Does Nizhóni’s adoptive family
Bottom: Dream scene (48m)
reproduce the violence of settler
colonialism?
➢ Alienated from traditional kinship
structures.
➢ Savior complex–connected to
whiteness, Christianity, and
education (boarding schools).
➢ Erasing Indigenous knowledges.
Top/left: Nizhóni receiving the
letters from Ruth (1h3m).

Bottom/right: Nizhóni confronting

her adoptive parents (1h13m).
 Colonial Conceptions of
Sexuality and Gender
❖ What is the nádleehí origin story Harmon tells
Felixia? Why is it important in the context of
cisheteronormativity that we’ve been
discussing?
➢ Despite facing transphobia from other
parts of the community, Felixia’s identity
is validated through the Navajo tradition. Top: Harmon recounting the nádleehí story (1h19m).
➢ A key component of the settler project Bottom: Felixia and Ruth making frybread (1h25m).
was the elimination of non-binary genders
and the destruction of traditions which
validated these social positions.

❖ How is Felixia’s decision to leave the

reservation similar to or different from Sick
Boy’s desire to leave?
➢ Both rooted in survival.
➢ Luther wants to escape whereas Felixia is
always welcome home.
Property & Patriarchy
How are property and gender interrelated in a settler colonial context?
❖ Imposition of male-only governance, the heteropatriarchal family, gender binary,
Christianity, and norms of patrilineal descent/inheritance.

❖ Native dispossession depended on sexual violence against Native women, which

disrupted community and traditional forms of governance.

❖ Violence against 2 Spirit & Indigiqueer peoples was necessary as a form of

cultural and spiritual genocide.

❖ Drunktown’s Finest works against many representational paradigms harmful to

Native women, queer, and trans folks.

❖ Being navajo vs performing womanhood properly.

Time, Space, and Futurity
❖ Does the film follow the standard narrative
structure described by Rowe?
➢ As Mayer notes, the film is structured by Max’s
kinaaldá. The ceremony binds the characters’
lives together, and centers community and
intergenerational trauma/healing–not just Top: Opening shot (15s).
interpersonal conflict. Bottom: Closing scene (1h29m).

❖ How do the film’s opening and closing

shots represent different perspectives on
land?
➢ Landscapes and wideshots are colonial
techniques designed to provide a sense of
mastery over territory.
➢ These shots work against the idealized or
whitewashed history of US settlement, and
they emphasize Indigenous relation to land.
“They say this land isn’t a place to live, it’s a place to leave”
❖ How do the practices we see here–cutting wood and
grinding corn–contest the claim that opens the film?
➢ Both actions are a part of ceremony and practices that
emphasize relation to land as an expansive entity, not just a
place.

❖ Regardless of whether Luther and Max leave or stay,

these scenes demonstrate a commitment to land,
community, and tradition.
➢ This goes against the spatial and temporal structure of Top: Luther and Copenhagen cutting wood (1h18m).
settler colonialism that seeks to destroy tradition and occupy Bottom: Max grinding corn (55m).
land.
➢ Colonialism creates the conditions of poverty, pollution, etc.

❖ Settler colonialism denies Native people a future–the

project of settlement is the elimination of the Native
(by destruction or incorporation).
➢ These scenes (and previous slide) give us a glimpse into
Indigenous futurity–practices of resurgence and
decolonization.
Further Reading on Settler Colonialism and Gender
Arvin, Maile, et al. "Decolonizing Feminism: Challenging Connections between Settler Colonialism and Heteropatriarchy."
Feminist Formations, vol. 25 no. 1, 2013.

Deer, Sarah. The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America. University of Minnesota
Press, 2015.

Green, Rayna. “The Pocahontas Perplex: The Image of Indian Women in American Culture.” The Massachusetts Review,
vol. 16, no. 4, The Massachusetts Review, Inc., 1975.

Miranda, Deborah A. "Extermination of the Joyas: Gendercide in Spanish California." GLQ A Journal of Lesbian and Gay
Studies, vol. 16, no. 1-2, 2010.

Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty. University of Minnesota
Press, 2015.

Simpson, Audra. "The State is a Man: Theresa Spence, Loretta Saunders and the Gender of Settler Sovereignty." Theory
& Event, vol. 19 no. 4, 2016.

Smith, Andrea. Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. South End Press, 2005.