Understanding Indigenous Gender Relations and Violence: Becoming Gender AWAke

This book explores the severe inequities faced by Indigenous peoples, particularly women, due to gender and racial-based discrimination. It highlights the historical targeting of Indigenous gender relations as a tool of patriarchal settler colonization and the need to understand these relations to promote gender liberation and decolonization. The book offers a research-based approach linking historical oppression, gender-based inequities, and violence against Indigenous women, and provides pathways to becoming Gender AWAke through understanding Indigenous women's resilience and transcendence.

Format: Hardback
Length: 395 pages
Publication date: 10 January 2023
Publisher: Springer International Publishing AG

This book delves into the persistent and disproportionately severe inequities faced by Indigenous peoples, encompassing a wide range of gender and racial-based disparities. These inequities extend from the home life to Indigenous women's wellness, including physical, mental, and social health. The central focus of this work lies in understanding the perplexing phenomenon of why Indigenous women, who historically held respected and even sacred status in many matrilineal and female-centered communities, now experience the highest rates of gendered-based violence.

In contrast to Western European and colonial contexts, Indigenous societies tended to be organized in fundamentally distinct ways that were woman-centered and where gender roles and values were reported to be more egalitarian, fluid, flexible, inclusive, complementary, and harmonious. By examining how Indigenous gender relations were targeted as a tool of patriarchal settler colonization and their broader implications for women, this book offers a crucial insight into unlocking gender liberation. It serves as a catalyst for readers to awaken to the impact of gender and other sociostructural factors on their daily lives and empowers them to navigate these factors with agility and clarity.

Living gender AWAKE encompasses a holistic approach to life, where individuals align themselves with agility (AWA) and develop a clear awareness of how gender and other sociostructural factors shape their experiences. It involves living from one's center, in accordance with one's authentic self, and responding nimbly to the ever-changing situations of life. This empirically grounded work extends and deepens the Indigenist framework of historical oppression, resilience, and transcendence (FHORT) by delving into the resilience, transcendence, and wellness components of FHORT while centering gender.

Understanding the changing gender roles of Indigenous peoples over time fosters decolonization more broadly by promoting a greater understanding of how sexism and misogyny operate. By recognizing the historical and ongoing injustices faced by Indigenous women, this book contributes to the ongoing struggle for gender equality and social justice. It offers valuable insights and strategies for promoting equity and well-being for all individuals, regardless of their background or identity.

Weight: 781g
Dimension: 235 x 155 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783031185823
Edition number: 1st ed. 2023