In 2011, Native studies scholar Chris Finley called on other Native scholars to engage with queer theory/studies in their work.[i]
Why queer studies? Talking about sex among Natives "brings up many negative realities and colonial legacies of sexual violence"[ii] of the past, which continue to exist in present-day Native communities. In addition to the systematic rape of Native peoples at the time of European contact, there are "high rate[s] of sexual abuse in Native communities," as well as Native laws that in many cases cannot prosecute non-Natives for committing sexual abuses on tribal lands.[iii] Finley points to colonial power and its subsequent internalization by Native people as the reason behind the silence that surrounds sexuality in Native communities and in the fields that purport to study them. Having identified the difficulties in expressing or discussing (especially queer) sexualities in Native communities, Finley suggests that a link between Native and queer studies "can imagine more more-open, sex-positive, and queer-friendly discussions of sexuality in both Native communities and Native studies." Queer Natives The first and most obvious reasons for incorporating queer studies into Native scholarship and Native conversations about sexuality are the historical and continued existences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, two-spirit, queer, and genderqueer Indian people (LGBTQ2), living both inside and outside specifically Native communities. If queer studies is a "place where sexuality is discussed explicitly,"[iv] perhaps it can help diminish the prevalent silence that Finley notes around discussions of sexuality in Native communities. Since queer studies specifically considers non-heteronormative desires, preferences, and representations, then its theories and ideas can be useful to queer Natives' own thinking about their various sexualities, some of which fall categorically outside or even away from a heteronormative model that insists upon heterosexual desire as enacted between two gender conforming individuals. Moreover, the same internalized colonialism that makes talk of sex difficult in Native conversations, is also "internalized and institutionalized" by Native communities "as if it were traditional."[v] Tribal councils of various Native nations, following suit of United States laws regarding gay marriage, have included similarly heterosexist marriage laws into the tribal constitutions of their supposedly sovereign nations. That these heterosexist institutions often did not exist in pre-settler societies (several of which, in fact, held designated places for two-spirit persons as leaders, healers, and advisors) is just one motivation of those working to create a field of queer Indigenous studies that resists the heteronormative logics of settler colonialism and 'unsettles' both Native and queer studies. As Denetdale notes, "Native nations that mirror the U.S. nation-state by relying on homophobia and heteropatriarchy to establish national belonging and exclusion are not ideal models to further Native sovereignty."[vi] |
Unsettling queer and Native StudiesAs Andrea Smith points out, "discuss[ing] the status of gender-non-normative peoples within precolonial Native communities"[vii] does not exactly constitute an engagement with queer theory of the kind that she or Finley call for. Meanwhile, queer studies "only rarely addresses Native peoples and Native issues."[viii] However, insofar as queer theories scrutinize and critique heteropatriarchy and heteronormativity, then both Native and queer studies can gain from one another. For one, (queer) Native studies scholars interested in dismantling the settler colonial state of the United States will have a vested interest in colonial logics that continue to oppress native communities and the (queer) individuals within them today. Engaging with queer studies first can inspire critical Native thinking about sex and the ways that U.S. dominant culture has framed sexuality for Indian people. Finley suggests that considering sexuality as "a logic of colonial power" can further "decolonize Native studies and...communities by exposing the hidden ways that Native communities have been colonized and have internalized colonialism."[ix] In addition, Native engagement with queer studies provides an arena for queer Indigenous scholars to critique queer and queer of color theories. Smith notes that while these theories do "focus on normalizing logics, [they] generally neglect the normalizing logics of settler colonialism, particularly within the U.S. context."[x] Rather than view themselves as minoritarian subjects opposed to a 'dominant culture,' queer Indigenous scholars and activists struggle against an illegitimate settler colonial state (the U.S.A.), in which heteronormativite discourse and thereby the regulation of non heteronormative sexualities are prevalent. To "queer the analytics of settler colonialism"[xi] is first to recognize normalizing logics as distinct apparatuses of the settler colonial state aimed at continuing a heteropatriarchic and heteronormative society. It also means recognizing the settler colonial state as a normalizing logic in itself and resisting it by imagining "the possibility of alternative forms of nationalism that are not structured by nation states."[xii] |