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Alternative Indigenous Narratives and Gender Constructions in Sydney Freeland’s Drunktown’s Finest (2014)
Full text link In this article, I will examine how alternative narratives of gender and sexuality update and diversify the catalog of images of Indigenous people through the 2014 drama Drunktown’s Finest, written and directed by the Navajo filmmaker Sydney Freeland, and how this film interrogates the possibility to assume a Two-Spirit identity on and off the reservation.
Sydney Freeland’s film achieves to remind the audience of the tribal tradition of deep respect that has characterized relationships with Two-Spirit people for a long time through the story of one of its characters, transgender woman Felixia. Living with her traditional grandparents – a medicine man and his wife, she is completely accepted by them, because the concept of third and fourth genders is part of the Navajo/Diné culture, whereas the younger generation does not seem so tolerant. This pattern allows Freeland to participate in a larger project which is the fight against homophobia that replicates the dominant cultural norm and penetrates Indigenous communities. Ultimately, Felixia learns from her grandfather about Navajo nádleeh and finds her inner balance. Therefore, in this artwork, the enactment of what Qwo-Li Driskill calls “sovereign erotic” becomes a trope for Indigenous survivance
Awasi-: : Visual Images in Works from Kimberly Blaeser, Louise Erdrich, and Gerald Vizenor
Full text linkThe article sheds light on the relationship between visual representations and kinship, connection, and worldview present in work by three mixedblood Anishinaabe literary artists: White Earth band members Kimberly Blaeser and Gerald Vizenor and Turtle Mountain Chippewa Louise Erdrich. All three deploy words in multiple genres articulating an other way of knowing and being, a way rooted in Anishinaabe worldview, culture, and history. Blaeser's photographs in her 2019 volume of poetry Copper Yearning and elsewhere, Erdrich's drawings in her memoir Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country (2003), and Vizenor's photographs in his mixed-genre The People Named the Chippewa (1984) complement and reenforce their words, and vice-versa.
p.s. I have a short video to accompany the article--it was too large to upload; the article can stand without it, if necessary. C
Decolonizing Data: Unsettling Conversations about Social Research Methods (Jacqueline M. Quinless)
No full textIn Decolonizing Data: Unsettling Conversations about Social Research Methods, Jacqueline Quinless delves into the process of incorporating Indigenous perspectives into Western social science research, particularly in healthcare. Through an exploration of historical contexts, Quinless underscores the detrimental effects of dominant wellness views on Indigenous communities and advocates for a shift towards “relational allyship.” Quinless not only provides a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of colonization on health but also offers tangible solutions for improving healthcare outcomes. Emphasizing the reciprocal nature of allyship, Quinless urges non-Native researchers to actively engage with Indigenous methodologies and frameworks, thereby creating space for Indigenous perspectives within Western sciences. Her work serves as a crucial starting point for non-Native researchers seeking to enhance their allyship and contribute to more equitable healthcare practices
REVIEW ESSAY: “Story and memory. Memory and story”: Manifesting Vacancy in Thomas King’s Indians on Vacation
Full text linkCreating Shki-kiin, New Worlds: : The Possibilities and Sustainabilities of Indigenous SF
No full textIn this article, I look at Simon Ortiz’s “Men on the Moon” (1999), Richard Van Camp’s “On the Wings of this Prayer” (2013) and Eden Robinson’s “Terminal Avenue” (2004) as examples of Indigenous writers exploring contemporary environmental and sustainability concerns, including collectively shared, and more justly distributed and inhabited spaces, within the realm of possibility of settler-colonialism, through the malleable modus operandi of SF. I argue that these publications are examples of intermedial (wonder)works that attest, on the one hand, to the complexity of the process of textualizing or otherwise materializing storytelling traditions and concepts of kinship and, on the other hand, to the creation of alternative forms of political action, social transformation and healing. I read these stories as, on the one hand, restorative of Indigenous bodies, nations, and epistemologies, at the very center of and through narratives of resurgence and, on the other hand, as artistic interventions, they are not only generative of change, but call for respectful, consensual, and critical forms of engagement. 
American graffiti protection: shy until further notice
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Graffiti is public art that is painted in the streets on the exterior walls of buildings. Some murals appear suddenly in the morning, sometimes without even seeing their creator, and usually without the permission of the owner of the wall, which typically fits with the incrimination and censure of it. This is because it is a platform for those without one, and instead of paying huge amounts for commercial advertising space, it is enough to use spray colors to deliver the message. These arts appear with motives such as protest, for example. Therefore, Artists of graffiti recommend choosing a wall in a diplomatic space to paint an unprecedented message. It began in the sixties of the last century in Philadelphia and New York, before it developed and moved globally.[6] Therefore, it is considered among the latest visual arts. Nevertheless, The United States (US) authorities have considered graffiti as a pandemic harmful to society that needs to be fought. As for the media, its artists have shown that they are a subversive component of society. However, graffiti was considered by some to be a fine art, since it was seen as a symbol of gentrification, since it was illegal. This art is secretly created on the walls of properties because it is easy to do, which prompted it to be considered a distortion of the landmarks of cities and real estate.
 
Criminal Justice Policy and Victim-Survivor Empowerment: A Case Study of Domestic Violence Disclosure Schemes in England and Wales
Full text linkEmpowering victim-survivors has long been recognised as one key strategy in reducing domestic abuse. This article explores whether Domestic Violence Disclosure Schemes as a criminal justice response to preventing domestic abuse in the United Kingdom are experienced as empowering in practice. Centralising victim-survivor voices, this article argues that variability in experiences of feeling empowered or disempowered pivoted upon whether those who deliver the scheme adopted an incident or process focussed approach. It concludes that while such schemes can be empowering when concomitant support is forthcoming, ultimately the victim-survivors in this study were left feeling disillusioned because of the disparities between what was expected and the limits of what was delivered in practice
Virtual Reconnections: Indigenous objects speak back
No full textThe emergence of computer-generated technologies and their increasing affordability has been welcomed with enthusiasm and it is now reaching maturity across different sectors, from the scientific and technological field to educational and recreational contexts. With an eye on its criticalities, this paper reflects on the ways in which VR can be used to engage with Indigenous artefacts and knowledges. Primarily, this work looks at VR as a symbolic and concrete space for the reconfiguration of Indigenous storytelling and the mapping of new cartographies. It does so by reflecting on the possibilities and limitations of a collaborative project that investigates the potential of VR to tell stories through objects (through the mobilisation of strong affective responses), transmit knowledge and educate. The project is a collaborative venture between the author, an Italian scholar based in London, a Greek scholar and VR artist based in London, a London-based Sierra Leonian artist and a Torres Strait Islander artist who resides in Australia. The identities of the people involved in the project are key to understanding VR as a space for dialogue, and a place to think about the situated and subjective practices which are embodied and embedded in the narrative and structure of the VR experience itself. Therefore, we have embraced Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s approach to decolonising methodologies, together with community-based participatory research as key frameworks to understanding intercultural collaboration, the handling of Indigenous knowledges, intellectual property, data sovereignty, and the digitisation of tangible and intangible Indigenous cultural heritage. Investigations into the uses of VR in maintaining cultural heritage and Indigenous cultural artefacts have been undertaken by some scholars (see Newell, for instance), but more research needs to be done to shed light on the complexities of working with these technologies in terms of access, sustainability and effective change. This paper thus looks at VR as a platform for Indigenous communities across cultures to think about sustainable futures as old and new challenges intervene in cultural maintenance, transmission and revitalisation. Within this context, spatial elements and trajectories of Indigenous artefacts that have been removed from their original place of use to travel to the heart of the Empire have been considered. Yet, while here we are not directly engaging with the role of museums and demands of repatriation, we nevertheless argue that ‘digital/virtual reconnections’ could be the first step towards encouraging the younger generations to engage and/or re-engage with aspects of culture that may feel distant. Moving beyond the concept of digital repatriation, the term ‘reconnections’ captures the possibilities of VR in terms of agency, maintenance, revival and reintegration of important cultural objects/knowledges. The Bondo Mask in Sierra Leone and the Turtle Shell mask in the Torres Strait Islands carry with them deep transcultural and cross-cultural meanings, practices and traditions that VR technologies and environments can help revive. Thus, this work sets out to further investigate if and how immersive virtual approaches to Indigenous cultures can strengthen a sense of community and pride in cultural identity while healing transgenerational fractures and reviving deep-seated traditions so as to move confidently towards the future. Through a series of critical ethnographic methods, two of the researchers have and will continue to carry out investigations and fieldwork within their communities of origin in an effort to gather direct testimonies and guidelines from Elders and community members to shape the project in ways that are meaningful and contextual
In the Name of Love: Queering Relationships in Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots (1991)
Full text linkPrincess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots (1991), written by the Kuna-Rappahannock author Monique Mojica, constitutes a palimpsestic performance wherein the playwright recuperates the voices of well-known figures like Pocahontas or La Malinche, questioning the European imaginations and decolonizing their stories. The transnational polyphonic space created by Mojica allows not only exposes the long-lasting and broad impact that these European narratives have on Indigenous Women; but it also enables the configuration of a genealogical anthology of Indigenous Feminist, Queer and Two-Spirit knowledge by sewing into her comedic yet utterly angry tapestry the works of other Indigenous -mainly Queer- authors, like Gloria Anzaldúa, Chrystos and Beth Brant, among others.
This paper aims to explore the queer potential of Mojica’s play by reading it as in conversation with Beth Brant’s work, whose discourse provides new and unexplored insights into the performance. On the one hand, such a frame uncovers the mechanisms on display of the European romances, which have instrumentalized the name/idea of ‘love’ as a colonial apparatus to articulate and impose Western heteronormative models upon Indigenous communities, justifying withal European sexual relations with Indigenous women, especially rapes, by creating the stereotype of them as willing for their colonial desire. Whereas, on the other hand, by applying Brant’s A Gathering of Spirit, Mojica’s text reveals a turning towards queer kinship as an alternative to heteronormative relationships, by retrieving the erotic potential of appointed female elements, such as the moon, the water, or even oranges; as well as by gathering the multiplicity of female voices that create this Third Space for the healing of Indigenous women in the name of love
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