The wounds of colonization include but are certainly not limited to planetary destruction; racialized dehumanization; historical enslavement; ancestral poverty; and capitalist fatigue; and genocidal violence. Though tremendously diverse, the circumstances of Indigenous women are shaped by this history in sharp contrast against traditional social orders, modes of organization, and customary forms of governance. This system of control violently impacts Indigenous women as we navigate a world that devalues our bodies, stories, and experiences.
Historically, state-sanctioned practices have defined Indigenous and racialized people across Turtle Island as inherently degenerate, our lives as inherently violent, and our victimization as naturalized. This occurs through the apprehension of Indigenous children from their homes and families; forced sterilization; unacceptable living conditions; forced impoverishment; residential school system; restrictions on and destruction of land-based means of sustenance; mass incarceration rates; the Indian Act; and gendered violence against Indigenous women, girls, trans, and two-spirit people.
The burden I carry as an Indigenous who has survived violence in light of this historical context is unbearable at times. To heal, I have found ways to combine my voice, lived experiences, and privilege to urge for a critical transformation, and to address patriarchal dehumanization. In other words, I am an anti-violence advocate located at an Indigenous feminist perspective.
Indigenous feminisms constitute a rich, diverse, and incandescent body of scholarship that interrogate the “intersections between colonialism and patriarchy examin[ing] how race and gender systems overlap to create conditions in which Indigenous women are subjected to forms of social disempowerment that arise out of historical and contemporary practices of colonialism, racism, sexism, and patriarchy” (Suzack 262).
As an Indigenous feminist, it is my obligation to speak my truth and imagine a different way of living beyond a world of violence. I argue we need to frontline decolonial, intersectional work of Indigenous and racialized women, two-spirits, queer, and trans people. This is what justice means to me. Restoring Indigenous laws and shaping them in contemporary contexts. Forming land-based connections. Making decolonialized love. Mourning, healing, and resisting.
Indigenous Feminist Futures of Self-Realization: Decolonial Love and Healing
I am greatly challenged by the dissonance of healing inward under domination and climate crisis. How do we heal from gender violence when it is still ongoing? How do we heal from something that has never left us? How do we heal when we are repeatedly retraumatized? How do we heal when land, water, and beings are being destroyed at the hands of colonial, capitalist, and industrialist greed, exploitation, and systemic corruption?
Feminist writer and activist bell hooks refers to theory, particularly when rooted in lived experience, critical reflection, and visions of the future, as a “healing place” (2). It is through writing that we animate stories of freedom beyond shorelines, love beyond colonial bounds, and justice beyond courtrooms. We do this to mend our hearts, heal our wounds, and rebuild our nations. We write to make sense of violence and tragedy. We write to animate the effects of colonialism and patriarchy by empowering our lived experiences beyond the bounds of academic scholarship and political activism. I have always understood this, for my ancestral teachings, blessings, and prayers, and making sense of my life through writing, are what I know to be true and continuously draw on, more so than what can be neatly cited in MLA format and legitimized through peer review. When we tend to the notion that theorizing about survivance and sharing stories of continuance constitutes healing, it is a gesture against restrictive representations. In reviving our rights to art and self-expression as we resist colonial expectations of Indigenous personhood and heal for lost lives, unrealized dreams, and silenced voices.
I write this piece for those who never realized their bodies could be and deserved to be treated with immense tenderness, respect, and love. To address how our bodies are too often imprinted with the memory of pain. To challenge access to self-care in the face of perpetually and deeply ingrained white supremacist vulnerability, eroded self-worth, and capitalist fatigue. It is our roots, ancestries, and community relations that ground, center, and unite us as we face ecological collapse, increasing fascism, and the constant onslaught on our human dignity. As we build solidarity, we must support each other in being rooted and taking full care of our spirits, bodies, and emotional states. I write this to urge all to intentionally untangle the stubborn threads of intergenerational trauma and to rub salve on the wounds we find underneath. We must resist our impulses to own, rewrite, or steer one other, but come together in strength, well-being and resistance.
How do oppressed and traumatized people locate joy and healing? In our colonized imaginations, how do we serve our well-being? How do we cope with the violence of life in perpetual survival mode after we have learned the world is unsafe for us?
I believe this process begins with peeling back layers of social conditioning and an insurmountable weight of shame, guilt, and judgement. In a culture of domination, we are taught to search for power outside of ourselves in the form of a partner, career, money, or status. We are taught power is wielded, rather than honoured and leaned into. This system is the beginning of a critical lesson: to search for validation, power, and success outside of ourselves rather than within. As Indigenous people, it is inevitable that we internalize this sense of powerlessness in relation to the world. Instead, I envision a future where we revere, worship and behold the self as part of the collective. I envision a world of rectified love. A world where love doesn’t mean ownership, possession, and patriarchal expectations. I envision a world where we do not search for love and acceptance outside of ourselves.
When we tend to the notion that theorizing about and sharing stories of continuance constitutes healing, I argue it is for the betterment of our relations. The Anishinabek teaching of biskaabiiyang is a verb that guides us to transform traditional teachings into contemporary practices. This is a process of returning to ourselves, reengaging with the things we have left behind, and an unfolding from the inside out. This is the ceremony of everyday survival. As I struggle to accept individual and collective grief – the sorrow, sense of losing sense of our world, grappling with a life of destruction and life under domination – I lean into the concept of biskaabiiyang. This is how we move to power. This notion of wellbeing functions outside the discipline of patriarchy, racism, and capitalism, systems that feed us voices of shame, guilt, and judgement. Healing, then, for me, comes from honouring and returning to the self.
Through all the pain I have endured, I have come to learn that I am refuge. I have built a home around another person more than once, always expecting this time to be lasting and secure. But as the storms came the foundation cracked. Eventually, the entire home collapsed to pieces at my feet. If I build a home within myself, a palace of peace and solace, crafted with my own awareness and love, this can be the refuge I’ve always been seeking. Worshiping self and self-reverence are at the core of Indigenous feminist futures to fortify collective resistance. This notion in itself – to honour love in all forms and not just romantic love – is counter-hegemonic. We do not exist in a vacuum. We honour our ancestral strength and wisdom. We exist through lineage, community, kinship, and our relations. Self-love radiates in the ways we care for those around us. Inward liberation and self-actualization have the potential to catalyze collective healing and systemic upheaval.
I used to make every attempt to distance myself from my pain. I claimed, ‘I am a better person for it’, or ‘it made me feel stronger’. Doing this made me feel that there was a point to it all. But the truth is, none of the abuse should have happened to me. It should not have happened to you. You were hurt and mistreated and now you are left to deal with the collateral. Although extreme and senseless violence and pain has inspired me to push for a better world, this was not a lesson I needed to learn. We clearly learn so much about ourselves in our experiences, but I also believe that not every beginning should be swallowed by trauma.
I forgive myself for giving away my power. I forgive myself for the survival patterns and traits I developed out of abuse and violence. I forgive myself for being who I needed to be to keep myself safe.
I can not possibly know all of the answers. What I do know is that I walk alongside other Indigenous women as we negotiate intergenerational trauma, resist white supremacy and patriarchy, and reconstruct our recognition of being by forming land-based connections. Here, we reclaim love, desire, and truth, for we are not vulnerable, we are targeted. May we anchor freedom beyond shorelines and love beyond colonial bounds. May we revive traditions in contemporary contexts beyond western notions of feminist and masculinity, make decolonial love, and freely explore and redefine what exactly that means. May we retreat inwards and thus our community to mend our hearts, heal our wounds, and rebuild our nations as we unravel the common threads of violence in our lives. We do this so can tend to the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality are fixed within our world. We work to redefine ourselves, to evict patriarchy within us, and to overt the colonial gaze, not because we are not good enough, but because this is who we have always been. Being a good ancestor. Drawing boundaries. Learning to say no. Consuming art that reflects my realities. Understanding the impact of colonization in my identity, relations, and health. Unsubscribing to the white ideal. To reclaim love, desire, and truth safe from violence and abuse. This is my ceremony of everyday survival.
Written by Megan Lalonde
Works Cited
hooks, bell. “Theory as Liberatory Practice.” Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, vol. 4, no. 1,
1991. pp. 1 - 12.
Suzack, Cheryl. “Indigenous Feminisms in Canada.” NORA-Nordic Journal of Feminist and
Gender Research, vol. 23, no. 4, 2015. pp. 261-274.
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