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National Law and Indigenous Customary Law: The Struggle For Justice Of Indigenous Women In Chiapas, Mexico

R. Aída Hernández Castillo

in Gender Justice, Development, and Rights

This chapter examines the ways national law and indigenous customary law respond to the struggle of indigenous women in Chiapas, Mexico for rights within the new macro-political context of ... More

This chapter examines the ways national law and indigenous customary law respond to the struggle of indigenous women in Chiapas, Mexico for rights within the new macro-political context of multiculturalism. It is argued that certain academic paradigms used to analyse indigenous normative systems have contributed to creating an image of customary law as a harmonious space free of contradiction, and in isolation from national law. This is an image that can impede the development of proposals for reform aimed at increasing access to justice for indigenous women.Less

Restorative Justice for Domestic and Family Violence: Hopes and Fears of Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australian Women

Heather Nancarrow

in Restorative Justice and Violence Against Women

In 2000, recommendations from two Australian taskforce investigations highlighted opposing views, seemingly reflecting a racial divide, on the utility of restorative justice as a response to domestic ... More

In 2000, recommendations from two Australian taskforce investigations highlighted opposing views, seemingly reflecting a racial divide, on the utility of restorative justice as a response to domestic violence. Drawing on the literature and semi-structured interviews with Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian women, this chapter explores this apparent racial divide and seeks to explain the incongruence in the taskforce recommendations. The analysis finds the incongruence is centered on the symbolic meaning each group of women attributes to the role of the state, embodied in the criminal justice system, and differing justice objectives. While the non-Indigenous women fear that restorative justice will reinforce the dominant male paradigm, the Indigenous women are hopeful that it can overcome the limitations of the criminal justice system in achieving both gender and racial equality, though this is contingent on elements that do not exist in current restorative justice models.Less

Restorative Justice, Gendered Violence, and Indigenous Women

Julie Stubbs

in Restorative Justice and Violence Against Women

This chapter reviews debates about the use of Restorative Justice (RJ) for gendered violence, such as domestic violence or family violence. It identifies theoretical and empirical limitations to the ... More

This chapter reviews debates about the use of Restorative Justice (RJ) for gendered violence, such as domestic violence or family violence. It identifies theoretical and empirical limitations to the capacity of generic models of RJ to promote victim interests for offences related to violence against women. Part 2 considers gendered violence in Indigenous communities and notes that research and commentary often fails to recognize Indigenous women’s needs and interests. It concludes that the best way forward is to move beyond oppositional contrasts between RJ and criminal justice to develop hybrid models that adopt anti-subordination as a principle, supported by the requisite resources to protect that end, in working towards safe and just outcomes.Less

Indigenous women and settler colonial crime control

Chris Cunneen and Juan Tauri

in Indigenous Criminology

The focus of this chapter is Indigenous women’s experiences of settler colonial crime control, and the response of settler colonial criminal justice systems to the needs of Indigenous women. The ... More

The focus of this chapter is Indigenous women’s experiences of settler colonial crime control, and the response of settler colonial criminal justice systems to the needs of Indigenous women. The chapter discusses in detail significant issues relating to Indigenous women’s engagement with settler colonial crime control, including ongoing increases in police contact and imprisonment. Employing critical Indigenous analysis of the Northern Territory Emergency Response implemented by the Australian Federal Government in 2007, this chapter demonstrates the intersectional foundations behind the significant rise in Indigenous women’s engagement with the criminal justice system, and the role played by the settler colonial state in their continued criminalisation.Less

Indigenous Women, Poetry, and the Double Gaze

Gloria Elizabeth Chacón

in Indigenous Cosmolectics: Kab'awil and the Making of Maya and Zapotec Literatures

Chapter 3 discusses the notion of gender complementarity through kab’awil as an achievable horizon for indigenous peoples. The chapter focuses on the work of indigenous women across regions and ... More

Chapter 3 discusses the notion of gender complementarity through kab’awil as an achievable horizon for indigenous peoples. The chapter focuses on the work of indigenous women across regions and nations, demonstrating the way that the double gaze allows them to see beyond ideas of tradition that impinge on their sense of autonomy. The chapter underscores the work of Rosa María Chávez, Calixta Gabriel Xiquín, Maya Cú, Briceida Cuevas Cob, María Enriqueta Lunes, Angelina Díaz Ruíz, Irma Pineda Santiago, and Natalia Toledo Paz.Less

For Sister or State?: Nationalism and the Indigenous and Bengali Women’s Movements in Bangladesh

Kabita Chakma and Glen Hill

in Dissident Friendships: Feminism, Imperialism, and Transnational Solidarity

This chapter provides a nuanced picture of the use of the glorious nationalist framework in the secular nationalist women's movement in Bangladesh as a matter of national pride and liberation. Yet at ... More

This chapter provides a nuanced picture of the use of the glorious nationalist framework in the secular nationalist women's movement in Bangladesh as a matter of national pride and liberation. Yet at the same time, the chapter also shows the underside of this movement, which has yet to adequately acknowledge, integrate, and secure indigenous women's rights as a part of that same history. Furthermore, Bengali nationalism, even of the feminist kind, serves to silence indigenous women's complex struggle against state-sponsored militarism and patriarchy. In this context, the Bengali women's movement functions as a colonial power where nationalism becomes a dubious force that divides populations.Less

Gender Parity, Legal Pluralism, and Human Rights of Indigenous Women: An Outlook from Mexico

Dorothy Estrada-Tanck

in Gender Parity and Multicultural Feminism: Towards a New Synthesis

Mexico is one of the world leaders in the move towards parity measures for women’s representation, through its constitutional requirement of equal gender representation in legislative candidacies. ... More

Mexico is one of the world leaders in the move towards parity measures for women’s representation, through its constitutional requirement of equal gender representation in legislative candidacies. Mexico has also been on the frontlines of the trend to constitutionally recognize indigenous rights, including self-government. However, the link between the two movements remains controversial. On the one hand, electoral parity for women in state institutions has not translated into a significant increase in the representation of indigenous women. On the other, indigenous women have often been excluded from participating within indigenous forms of governance. Courts have been inconsistent in their interpretation of parity norms and participation rights. To address this challenge, indigenous women have appealed to gender equality, parity democracy, and international human rights, but also to context-specific goals, including the need to tackle violence against indigenous women as well as the grave poverty and vulnerability affecting indigenous peoples.Less

Introduction

Carol Williams

in Indigenous Women and Work: From Labor to Activism

This introductory chapter first maps the logic for the unconventional inclusions of Faye HeavyShield's creamy, multipaged, glass-bead book entitled hours and Beth Piatote's short fictional story, ... More

This introductory chapter first maps the logic for the unconventional inclusions of Faye HeavyShield's creamy, multipaged, glass-bead book entitled hours and Beth Piatote's short fictional story, “Beading Lesson”, as the cover and finale of the present volume, respectively. It then provides an overview of the extraordinary set of essays nesting between the covers of HeavyShield and Piatote by sampling some key concerns for a transnational history of indigenous women's labor. Although not clearly scored between chapters nor among sectors of work, the book is organized both chronologically and relative to various sectors of labor discussed by the respective authors. Starting with examinations of women's resources or manual labor, the analysis moves to variations on rural, agricultural- or land-based labor; turns to reproductive and/or domestic “service” or labor within arenas such as women's social networks or “clubs”; focuses on entrepreneurial and creative initiatives and the professional opportunities that evolve according to external market demands; and concludes by looking at women's labor and their compounding social capital as they transition into advocacy, activism, education, or administration.Less

“Returning from the Enemy”: The Poetics and Politics of Indigenous Women’s Legal History

Katrina Jagodinsky

in Legal Codes and Talking Trees: Indigenous Women's Sovereignty in the Sonoran and Puget Sound Borderlands, 1854-1946

This book explores the ways that Indigenous women dealt with the challenges posed by the existing legal codes in the Puget Sound and Sonoran borderlands during the period 1854–1946. Drawing on ... More

This book explores the ways that Indigenous women dealt with the challenges posed by the existing legal codes in the Puget Sound and Sonoran borderlands during the period 1854–1946. Drawing on generations of interdisciplinary scholarship, it considers the poetics and politics of Indigenous legal history as well as the efforts of Indian women to achieve corporeal sovereignty—authority over their own bodies and progeny. The book looks at six Indigenous women and their families to survive settler colonialism and argues that nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Native women critiqued their economic and sexual vulnerability under the legal regimes imposed on them by “enemy immigrants” and “purveyors of the law” who sought to dispossess Native Americans of their country and culture. The book is organized around issues of sex, servitude, gender, family property, space, and race.Less

Challenging Male Dominance in Norm-Making in Contexts of Legal Pluralism: Insights from the Andes

Rachel Sieder and Anna Barrera Vivero

in Gender Parity and Multicultural Feminism: Towards a New Synthesis

The gender participatory turn in the Andes has been accompanied by multicultural and plurinational citizenship regimes granting greater autonomy for indigenous self-governance and recognition of ... More

The gender participatory turn in the Andes has been accompanied by multicultural and plurinational citizenship regimes granting greater autonomy for indigenous self-governance and recognition of legal pluralism. While autonomy regimes have been criticized for legalizing gender discrimination in customary systems, this chapter emphasizes the diverse strategies deployed by indigenous women to improve their participation and secure greater gender justice within communal governance regimes—systems they defend as more accessible than state institutions. In some cases positive synergies have developed between the parity movement and indigenous women’s struggles for voice. In other cases, the absence of cross-class alliances, racism, and party political calculations and interests have impeded the development of a transformative agenda for advancing women’s interests. Evidence from the Andes suggests that strategies of claiming voice and greater participation within indigenous governance systems are complementary to national approaches for advancing gender equality, not in conflict with them.Less

: Prostitutes and Mothers

in Mixed Medicines: Health and Culture in French Colonial Cambodia

This chapter investigates the contradictions in the colonial government's approach to indigenous women's health. Concerns with male and population health ultimately motivated colonial efforts to ... More

This chapter investigates the contradictions in the colonial government's approach to indigenous women's health. Concerns with male and population health ultimately motivated colonial efforts to improve female health. The colonial engagement in women's health in Cambodia was closely associated to maternalist movements in the West. The French medical service undertook what were secondary causes of the unpopularity of Western medicine. The role of métis in the sage-femme programs is then discussed. The métis women entered the Assistance Médicale in the indigenous cadre, which instituted the rural birth attendant program, modeled most closely on a program in neighboring Vietnam. This program dissolved with the outbreak of World War II and the ensuing governmental instability. While in Europe women actively politicked for maternal and children's political rights, the maternal movement in Cambodia was only an initial step in creating a political engagement between indigenous women and the state.Less

Nora Jewell “In Family Way”: Washington, 1854–1910

Katrina Jagodinsky

in Legal Codes and Talking Trees: Indigenous Women's Sovereignty in the Sonoran and Puget Sound Borderlands, 1854-1946

This chapter examines how Indigenous women dealt with the challenges of economic and sexual vulnerability under settler-colonial laws by focusing on the case of Nora Jewell in territorial Washington ... More

This chapter examines how Indigenous women dealt with the challenges of economic and sexual vulnerability under settler-colonial laws by focusing on the case of Nora Jewell in territorial Washington during the period 1854–1910. Nora Jewell of San Juan Island lost her Salish mother and Danish father to unknown circumstances and became a ward of Washington Territory at the age of twelve. In 1880 she sued James F. Smith, her American guardian, for rape, accusing him of impregnating her. This chapter considers Jewell's sexual assault case against Smith, the putative father of her unborn child, in criminal court to highlight the gendered and racial contours of change and transformation that shaped Indigenous women's legal philosophies and their encounters with territorial legal regimes.Less

Indigenous Women: Women of the Cordillera

Mina Roces

in Women's Movements and the Filipina: 1986-2008

This chapter discusses the representation of indigenous women in the women's movements using sources from three organizations: Center for Women's Resources, Cordillera (CWERC); Innabuyog Philippines, ... More

This chapter discusses the representation of indigenous women in the women's movements using sources from three organizations: Center for Women's Resources, Cordillera (CWERC); Innabuyog Philippines, which is allied with GABRIELA; and Igorota, founded by a feminist Maryknoll nun. While acknowledging that certain unique aspects distinguished indigenous women from the majority of Filipinas, activists focused on the similarities between highland women and their lowland counterparts. The chapter argues that women's movements focused on “sameness” with lowland women rather than on difference and suggests that a narrative that emphasized indigenous women's similarities with all Filipino women was an attempt to include them into the meta-history of the national lowland or mainstream women's movements. By emphasizing their sameness with lower-class Filipino women, however, indigenous women lost the chance to become alternative role models in the women's movements even though they were mythologized as resistance fighters.Less

Policing, Indigenous peoples and social order

Chris Cunneen and Juan Tauri

in Indigenous Criminology

Chapter four discusses the policing of Indigenous peoples. It outlines the importance of various royal commissions and inquiries in Australia and Canada. The chapter considers in particular the role ... More

Chapter four discusses the policing of Indigenous peoples. It outlines the importance of various royal commissions and inquiries in Australia and Canada. The chapter considers in particular the role of police discretion and its adverse use against Indigenous people with a focus on stop and searches, move-on powers, juvenile diversion, bail and pre-trial detention. It outlines the role of racial profiling and use of force, and details the issue of Indigenous deaths in custody, particularly in Australia and Canada. The chapter has a specific discussion on policing and responses to violence against Indigenous women. The chapter concludes with a discussion on Indigenous modes of policing including community police, US tribal police and local policing initiatives such as night patrols.Less

Indigenous spatiality within the colonial sphere

Sara Mills

in Gender and Colonial Space

This chapter discusses indigenous spatiality. It studies the way that this was often constructed, in contrast to a presumed British spatiality. It also tries to mark the sense that indigenous ... More

This chapter discusses indigenous spatiality. It studies the way that this was often constructed, in contrast to a presumed British spatiality. It also tries to mark the sense that indigenous populations resisted colonial rule and tried to manage and restrict colonists, and that it is this resistance that makes its presence felt in the accounts of the colonists. This chapter also examines cannibalism and the seclusion of indigenous women.Less

Lucía Martínez and the “Putative Father”: Arizona, 1854–1900

Katrina Jagodinsky

in Legal Codes and Talking Trees: Indigenous Women's Sovereignty in the Sonoran and Puget Sound Borderlands, 1854-1946

This chapter explores how Indigenous women faced the laws that bound them to American masters and made them sexually vulnerable to male citizens' whims by chronicling the experiences of a Yaqui woman ... More

This chapter explores how Indigenous women faced the laws that bound them to American masters and made them sexually vulnerable to male citizens' whims by chronicling the experiences of a Yaqui woman in Arizona, Lucía Martínez, during the period 1854–1900. It narrates how Lucía endured an adolescence of servitude under a territorial Arizona senator, King S. Woolsey, whom she challenged as the putative father of her illegitimate children in civil court. Woolsey fathered three of Lucía's children and indentured two of them. Lucía sued Woolsey in 1871 for custody of her mixed-race children, becoming the first Native woman to use Arizona's legal system. This chapter discusses Lucía's child custody petition in the Arizona civil court as well as the transformation of her children from Martínez to Woolsey within a lifetime, which reflected a shift in Yaqui claims to whiteness and citizenship in Arizona Territory.Less