Beatrice Mosionier

Cheryl Suzack

Life stories of two Metis sisters who suffer the breakdown of their family relations and the injustices of the social services system.

In Search of April Raintree

Cover -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Indigenous Women's Writing, Storytelling, and Law -- Chapter One: Gendering the Politics of Tribal Sovereignty: Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez (1978) and Ceremony (1977) -- Chapter Two: The Legal Silencing of Indigenous Women: Racine v. Woods (1983) and In Search of April Raintree (1983) -- Chapter Three: Colonial Governmentality and GenderViolence: State of Minnesota v. Zay Zah (1977) and The Antelope Wife (1998) -- Chapter Four: Land Claims, Identity Claims: Manypenny v. United States (1991) and Last Standing Woman (1997) -- Conclusion: For an Indigenous-Feminist Literary Criticism -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index

Indigenous Women's Writing and the Cultural Study of Law

In Indigenous Women’s Writing and the Cultural Study of Law, Cheryl Suzack explores Indigenous women’s writing in the post-civil rights period through close-reading analysis of major texts by Leslie Marmon Silko, Beatrice Culleton Mosionier, Louise Erdrich, and Winona LaDuke. Working within a transnational framework that compares multiple tribal national contexts and U.S.-Canadian settler colonialism, Suzack sheds light on how these Indigenous writers use storytelling to engage in social justice activism by contesting discriminatory tribal membership codes, critiquing the dispossession of Indigenous women from their children, challenging dehumanizing blood quantum codes, and protesting colonial forms of land dispossession. Each chapter in this volume aligns a court case with a literary text to show how literature contributes to self-determination struggles. Situated at the intersections of critical race, Indigenous feminist, and social justice theories, Indigenous Women’s Writing and the Cultural Study of Law crafts an Indigenous-feminist literary model in order to demonstrate how Indigenous women respond to the narrow vision of law by recuperating other relationships–to themselves, the land, the community, and the settler-nation.

Shari M. Huhndorf

Jean Barman

Jeanne Perreault

Can the specific concerns of Indigenous women be addressed by mainstream feminism? Indigenous Women and Feminism proposes that a dynamic new line of inquiry – Indigenous feminism – is necessary to truly engage with the crucial issues of cultural identity, nationalism, and decolonization particular to Indigenous contexts. Through the lenses of politics, activism, and culture, this wide-ranging collection crosses disciplinary, national, academic, and activist boundaries to explore deeply the unique political and social positions of Indigenous women. A vital and sophisticated discussion, these timely essays will change the way we think about modern feminism and Indigenous women.

Cheryl Suzack

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