Gender, Epistemic Violence, and Indigenous Resistance

This chapter provides an introduction to gendered differences in work, poverty, and violence experienced by Indigenous People and the limitations of sociology in explaining Indigenous Peoples continued dispossession and oppression. The chapter also provides an overview of the contribution of Indigenous feminisms and queer Indigenous studies to broader thinking on gender, coloniality, and First Nations sovereignty. Integral to this analysis is the colonial imposition of gender binaries and the gendered violence of settler-colonial societies, which is central to the formation of such states, their spatiotemporalities, and the ongoing oppression of Indigenous Peoples and our lifeworlds. Central to the focus of an Indigenous sociology of gender are myriad forms of resistance to epistemic violence, anchored in tradition and by normative systems, and essential for the maintenance and reinvention of Indigenous futures. This chapter provides an introduction to Indigenous scholarship on gender and sexuality, gendered structures of historic and contemporary violence toward Indigenous Peoples, and maps the resistance of gendered identities as fundamental to the resurgence of Indigenous lifeworlds.