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Full text of this paper is not available in the ETD Center. Copies may be available for inter-library loan from University of Cincinnati or may be available for purchase from Proquest/UMI

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REVISING STRATEGIES THE LITERATURE AND POLITICS OF NATIVE WOMEN'S ACTIVISM

Udel, Lisa J.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin990625725

Abstract Details

2001, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences : English and Comparative Literature.
This work examines Native women's activism in contemporary North American decolonizing movements. Looking at Native women's political literature with particular attention to their theories of gender, post-colonialism, Indigenism, feminism, and the reformative obligations of the writer, this study is concerned with several questions. First, how do Native women activists and writers analyze their experiences of hegemonic and patriarchal oppression, how do they outline and enact their political vision, and how do they theorize "race" and "gender" in twentieth- and twenty-first-century North America? Second, how does the history of conquest, going back at least three centuries, continue to affect contemporary Native women's theories and praxes of activism today? Third, what are the intellectual, cultural, and political responsibilities of the Native activist/writer living in modern America? Finally, how have Native women constructed their political vision against and alongside white women's movements? Can they coalesce for political reform? Native women's decolonizing movements include a critique of Eurocentrism, grounded in an analysis of specific historical contingencies, along with the reintegration of Native traditions of social and political praxes into contemporary tribal life. Several Native writers characterize this movement as "Indigenism" which presupposes several assumptions: that indigenous people worldwide share a common experience of colonization and subsumption into a capitalist, hegemonic nation state; a shared investment in the attainment of sovereign nationhood; and a fundamentally non-disruptive, integrative relationship to the natural habitat. Chapter One examines Native women's life narratives, concentrating on questions of writing as witness and the achievement of a liberatory voice through inscription. Chapter Two reviews the differences between Native and western feminist activism, arguing that these differences are determined, in part, by Native and white women's divergent histories of gender. Chapter Three explores the political and artistic theories of "Two-Spirit" women writers which argue for their responsibility to mediate between worlds in conflict. Chapter Four demonstrates the ways that Native women activist writers promote Indigenism and sovereignty, concluding with a discussion of the authors' designs upon the reader and that reader's role as a consumer of and participant in texts with an overtly Indigenist agenda.
Lisa Hogeland (Advisor)
NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES; NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS; FEMINIST STUDIES; WOMEN'S STUDIES; AMERICAN LITERATURE

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Citations

  • Udel, L. J. (2001). REVISING STRATEGIES THE LITERATURE AND POLITICS OF NATIVE WOMEN'S ACTIVISM [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin990625725

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Udel, Lisa. REVISING STRATEGIES THE LITERATURE AND POLITICS OF NATIVE WOMEN'S ACTIVISM. 2001. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin990625725.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Udel, Lisa. "REVISING STRATEGIES THE LITERATURE AND POLITICS OF NATIVE WOMEN'S ACTIVISM." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2001. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin990625725

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin990625725
© 2001, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.