Book review: In Good Relation: History, Gender, and Kinship in Indigenous Feminisms – Canadian Journal of History

With In Good Relation: History, Gender, and Kinship in Indigenous Feminisms, editors Sarah Nickel (Tk’emlúpsemc, Ukrainian, French Canadian) and Amanda Fehr (white settler) have compiled a collection of essays, stories, conversations, interviews, testimonials, and poems that aptly illustrate the depth, breadth, and variety of Indigenous feminisms across what are now known as the United States, Canada, and the territory of Sápmi in northern Europe. Their goal is to explore and represent how Indigenous feminisms have grown and changed over generations, while acknowledging that both affinities and distinctions have existed in different waves of Indigenous feminisms. What has not changed is the focus of Indigenous feminisms on the unique and intersectional nature of Native women’s experiences and oppressions and the fact that mainstream (white) feminism has failed to include or represent them and their interests. This volume illustrates that Indigenous feminisms have continued to offer useful modes of refusal and resistance against settler colonialism and white cisheteropatriarchy. It then goes further to include queer and Two-Spirit experiences and illustrates the overlap of Indigenous feminisms and the environment, health, art, activism, theory, kinship, land, historical trauma, sexuality, violence, and gender roles.

Read the rest of the review at the Canadian Journal of History...