This thesis reviews the participation of Tłı̨chǫ women in the environmental assessment (EA) of the NICO project proposed by Fortune Minerals Limited. Undertaken in 2012 in the Northwest Territories, this particular EA saw a precedential engagement between traditional knowledge and western science. Although this EA did not take a gendered approach, Tłı̨chǫ women’s stories and participation in the EA supported the Tłı̨chǫ Government’s interests throughout the review process and in the final mitigation measures. Predominate scholarship does not typically cast Indigenous women as participants in or beneficiaries of EAs and resource extraction projects. Results from this thesis support more recent scholarship that urges for an ethnographic and contextual analysis of each scenario. Ethnographic methods helped me to reveal the culturally specific, diverse and complex ways Tłı̨chǫ women participated and shared their stories in the Fortune Minerals EA. Tłı̨chǫ women’s stories, I found, were important and relevant to the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board’s assessment of the potential social and ecological impacts of the NICO project. I conclude that this EA is exemplary of Indigenous women’s agency within a regulatory process and offer suggestions for how to incorporate a gender-based analysis into future EA processes. / Graduate / 0733 / 0326 / janellek@uvic.ca

Les femmes autochtones vivent une discrimination intersectionnelle, en ce qu’elle provient d’au moins deux sources: le genre et la race (ou la culture), et qu’elle est plus complexe que la somme de ses sources. Par conséquent, les revendications des femmes autochtones se situent sur au moins deux plans: elles ont des revendications comme autochtones au sein de la population canadienne et comme femmes à l’intérieur de leurs communautés. Partant de la prémisse que l’État canadien doit reconnaître le droit à l’autodétermination des peuples autochtones et par le fait même le droit autochtone, nous nous interrogeons sur les moyens qui permettraient aux femmes autochtones d’exercer l’influence nécessaire pour faire reconnaître et accepter leurs revendications politiques et juridiques dans les processus décisionnels de leurs communautés. Féminisme et revendications autochtones sont-ils nécessairement antinomiques? Pour certaines auteures autochtones, une approche libérale fondée sur la « structure des droits » est incompatible avec les valeurs autochtones. Comment surmonter ces objections en apparence inébranlables? Le problème des femmes autochtones est-il simplement une affaire de « droits » non reconnus? N’est-ce pas plutôt un problème de rapports de pouvoir à l’extérieur, mais également à l’intérieur, des communautés? Nous tentons dans ce qui suit de démontrer qu’au-delà d’un cadre théorique basé sur les droits de la personne, une approche basée sur le principe démocratique permettrait aux femmes autochtones de faire valoir leurs revendications en tant que femmes et en tant qu’autochtones d’une manière plus efficace. En effet, la participation démocratique de tous les membres de la communauté permettrait de contourner les problèmes théoriques liés à une dichotomie entre droits individuels et collectifs, en mettant l’accent sur le processus décisionnel plutôt que sur la valeur des décisions en découlant. Dans cette perspective, féminisme et revendications autochtones peuvent s’allier avantageusement. / Indigenous women live an intersectional discrimination, in that it comes from at least two sources: gender and race (or culture), and is more complex than the sum of its sources. Therefore, the claims of indigenous women are on at least two fronts: as Aboriginals, they claim their right to self-determination, but they also claim their rights as women inside their own communities. Starting from the premise that the Canadian state must recognize the right of self-governement to indigenous peoples and thereby indigneous law, we question the ways in which indigenous women are to exercise influence to gain recognition and accept their political and legal claims in decision-making process of their communities. Are feminist and indigenous claims necessarily contradictory? For some indigenous authors, a liberal approach based on human rights is incompatible with indigenous values. How to overcome these apparently unshakable objections? Is the native women's problem simply a question of unrecognized rights? Is it not rather a problem of power relations outside, but also inside communities? In what follows, we try to show that beyond a theoretical framework based on human rights, the democratic principle-based approach would allow indigenous women to assert their claims as women and as an indigenous in a more efficient manner. Indeed, the democratic participation of all community members would bypass the theoretical problems related to a dichotomy between individual and collective rights, with an emphasis on decision-making rather than on the value of the resulting decisions. In this perspective, feminism and native claims can ally advantageously.

This research utilizes an agency framework to examine the complexities of the participation of indigenous women in local, national, and global spaces of activism. By examining the connections between processes of globalization of indigenous and women’s rights, development agendas, local politics, and gender dynamics in indigenous organizations, this research highlights the connection of ethnicity, gender, and power in an indigenous organization of Cotacachi, Ecuador, and for Ecuadorian and Latin American indigenous leaders and professionals working in national and global arenas. Four interconnected topics are explored: (1) the understanding of indigenous women’s participation in the history of their organization within a context of interethnic discrimination and poverty that especially affects indigenous women; (2) the relation between indigenous women and the changing demands on indigenous leadership due to reconfigurations of rural livelihoods, the ascendance of the indigenous movement as a political actor, and the sustained presence of development projects; (3) the challenges indigenous women face and the strategies they enact as local leaders in their communities and organization negotiating essentialized constructions of indigenous women’s identity and forms of gender inequality; (4) the transition to local, national, and international formal politics and indigenous activism in which indigenous women’s legitimacy increasingly necessitates both experience in the indigenous movement and professionalization and expert knowledge. Using an ethnographic methodology including interviews and participant observation, the research explores the participation of indigenous female leaders who, even if their strategies have favored working within the indigenous movement’s wider agenda, are also contesting forms of gender, ethnic, and class inequality they find in their own organizations and beyond. Thus, the research highlights the challenges they face, the strategies they resort to, and the possibilities of articulating a differentiated agenda that reflect their particular interests.

This Bachelor’s thesis is the result of a field study conducted in urban Bolivia. The aim of the study was to get a deeper understanding of the factors that can endorse or limit the potential for the women in a women’s group to influence social and economic agendas. It is a qualitative study that concerns the international social work with a women’s group, whose purpose seek to serve professional management in the production and selling of handicrafts. Participant observations in the women’s group, as well as interviews with two of the international social workers involved with the group were conducted. The results were analysed using a feminist theory perspective, with intersectionality theory as the main tool for analysis. The findings show that the access to income-generating activities can widen the elements of social identification for the women through active learning-processes, and further move towards an image where they become social actors. Concerns regarded if decision-making power were equally distributed among all women in the group.

Historical accounts of the Iberian incursion into the Andes indicate that Spaniards were amazed by the sophisticated roads and waystations (tambos) they encountered across Andean territory. During and after the Iberian conquest, indigenous and Spanish armies constantly burned tambos for strategic reasons, in order to slow the movement of enemy troops. Despite this practice, tambos were one of the few institutions that continued during the colonial  period. The Spanish rapidly recognized that tambos were beneficial for their economy, specifically markets and mining exploitation that required the movement of people, things, and animals across the Andean region. Consequently, during the early colonial period, Iberians dictated laws promoting the smooth functioning of tambos as a way of regulating the practices occurring in them; transforming tambos into a new colonial institution. In this article, I call attention to the transformation of tambos from a pre-Hispanic to a colonial institution as well as the colonial desire to control indigenous behavior in the new Andean society. I specially focus on the colonial fixation over the bodies of indigenous women, illustrating some aspects of the ideology of power exerted over indigenous communities. Finally, I discuss the importance of archaeology to better understand the transformation of tambos from the pre-Hispanic to the colonial period. / Cuando llegaron los españoles a los Andes, alabaron los caminos y tambos incaicos que encontraron mientras avanzaban a través del agreste territorio andino. A pesar de que durante y luego de la conquista española los tambos sufrieron un gran deterioro, fueron una de las pocas instituciones que continuaron funcionando durante la época colonial. Los hispanos se dieron cuenta rápidamente de que estos edificios eran de gran necesidad para su economía basada en el comercio y en la explotación minera, sistema que para funcionar requería del transporte de gente, objetos y animales. Por ello, pese a que los tambos estaban inmersos en un sistema económico mercantilista colonial, los españoles dispusieron de una serie de cédulas que promovían la reinstitucionalización de los tambos como en la época de «Guaynacapac». En este artículo, me sirvo de datos históricos que refieren a la legalización del funcionamiento de los tambos y a las prácticas ocurridas en ellos para observar las múltiples fricciones entre los hispanos e indígenas. Además, llamo la atención sobre un aspecto en particular: la obsesión española sobre el cuerpo de la mujer indígena, que devela la ideología de poder colonial. Al final del artículo, discuto la importancia de la arqueología para contribuir con un mejor entendimiento sobre la transformación de esta institución desde la época prehispánica hasta la colonial.

Submitted by Geyciane Santos (geyciane_thamires@hotmail.com) on 2015-10-02T15:44:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Vanessa Miranda.pdf: 7844243 bytes, checksum: 6ead35ff59815b11a7d24350b7c2fe17 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2015-10-09T13:51:23Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Vanessa Miranda.pdf: 7844243 bytes, checksum: 6ead35ff59815b11a7d24350b7c2fe17 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2015-10-09T14:07:36Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Vanessa Miranda.pdf: 7844243 bytes, checksum: 6ead35ff59815b11a7d24350b7c2fe17 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-10-09T14:07:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação - Vanessa Miranda.pdf: 7844243 bytes, checksum: 6ead35ff59815b11a7d24350b7c2fe17 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-31 / FAPEAM - Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas / This research sought to revalue the experiences of social participation of indigenous women, from 1995 to 2014, around the creation of Sateré-Mawé Indigenous Women's Association, as a proper space of resistance and organization for the conquest of their rights to culture, health and work in the city of Manaus. From written documents, photographic records, among others, studied the file of that Association, are highlighted in this study work processes and social mobilization towards health movements with own meanings engendered in the urban fabric by the transforming action of indigenous of Sateré-Mawé Indigenous Women's. Thus, ways of life advocated by the Association, such as handicrafts and fields of joint efforts against hunger, appear in this study as a joint field and social participation experiences of indigenous women in the city of Manaus / A presente pesquisa buscou revalorizar as experiências de participação social de mulheres indígenas, no período de 1995 a 2014, em torno da criação da AMISM, Associação de Mulheres Indígenas Sateré-Mawé, como espaço próprio de resistência e organização pela conquista de seus direitos à cultura, à saúde e ao trabalho na cidade de Manaus. A partir de documentos escritos, registros fotográficos, dentre outros, pesquisados no arquivo daquela Associação, são evidenciados neste estudo processos de trabalho e mobilização social em direção a movimentos de saúde com significados próprios engendrados no tecido urbano pela ação transformadora das indígenas da AMISM. Dessa forma, modos de vida defendidos pela Associação, como o artesanato e os mutirões de roça contra a fome, aparecem neste estudo como campo de articulação e de experiências de participação social de mulheres indígenas na cidade de Manaus.

Violence against Indigenous women and girls is an unacceptable tragedy in Canada. The 2019 Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls concluded Canada is guilty of "a race-based genocide of Indigenous Peoples ... which especially targets women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people." Using an intersectional feminist research ethic, I undertake a critical discourse analysis to determine in what ways key concepts such as national myth, dismissals of harm against Indigenous peoples, and conceptualizations of genocide influenced the reactions of the five major federal political parties to the Final Report. I review the parties' respective commitments to action by analyzing their 2021 electoral platforms and compare their discourse in the wake of the release of the Final Report with their official platform commitments. In essence, the research's empirical contribution shows an enabling self-confirming relationship between the key concepts present in political discourse in response to the Final Report and a political party's path forward when it comes to addressing violence against Indigenous women and girls.

Ce mémoire présente les résultats d’une recherche qualitative menée auprès de six femmes autochtones montréalaises, ayant pour but de documenter leur expérience avec les services hospitaliers dans la ville de Montréal. En effectuant avec chacune un entretien semi-dirigé, nous avons été en mesure de dresser le tableau de ces expériences. Le modèle écologique de Bronfrenbrenner nous a permis de situer les expériences d’hospitalisation dans un contexte social et politique spécifique, en explorant certains éléments de cet ordre qui pourrait influencer la manière dont l’hospitalisation est vécue. L’expérience des femmes autochtones avec les services hospitaliers est analysée selon trois dimensions. Premièrement, les éléments relevant des interactions entre les patientes et les professionnels de la santé sont présentés. Cette section permet de faire état de l’impression partagée, parmi les femmes rencontrées, que les interactions avec les professionnels de la santé sont marquées par la présence de stéréotypes et de préjugés négatifs. Deuxièmement, les éléments relevant du contexte social et politique, qui exercent une influence sur la manière dont les femmes vivent l’expérience d’hospitalisation sont à leur tour présentés. Cette section aborde les lacunes dans la formation des professionnels, ainsi que l’influence du discours médiatique sur l’image des femmes autochtones. Troisièmement, nous présentons différents moyens et stratégies mis en place par les femmes autochtones pour faire face à leur expérience de soins, parmi lesquels on retrouve l’utilisation du rire et le recours à la communauté d’appartenance. Finalement, cette dernière section rend compte des conséquences de l’expérience d’hospitalisation des femmes sur l’utilisation qu’elles font des services de santé. Ce mémoire se conclut en présentant certains enseignements que nous pouvons tirés de l’expérience des femmes autochtones rencontrées afin d’améliorer la qualité des soins de santé qui leur sont destinés. / This thesis presents the results of a qualitative study conducted with six indigenous women living in the city of Montreal. The goal of the study was to document their experience with the city’s hospital services. A semi structured interview was held with each of the women in order to gain access to these experiences. Bronfrenbrenner’s ecological model allows us to position the hospital experience within a social and political context by exploring external factors that might influence the way the hospitalization was experienced by the women. The women’s experiences are analysed by exploring three dimensions. First, we present elements surrounding the interactions between the patients and the health professionals. This section reveals the women’s shared perception of stereotypes being present. Second, we present elements belonging to the social and political context. This section shows the gap in the professionals' training on indigenous issues, as well as the influence of media representations on the way they perceive native women. Third, we present different ways and strategies the women have developed in order to confront their experience, such as the use of laughter and invoking the community they belong to. Finally, this section shows the repercussions of negative experiences on the way native women use health services. We conclude by exploring what can be learned from the women’s experiences, with the goal of improving the quality of health services that are being offered.

Latin America is in a political crisis, yet Bolivia is still widely recognized as a beacon of hope for progressive change. The radical movements at the beginning of the 21st century against neoliberalism that paved the road for the election of Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, beckoned a change from colonial rule towards a more just society. Paradoxically, in pursuing progress through economic growth, the Bolivian state led by President Morales has replicated the colonial division of labor through a development model known as neo-extractivism. Deeply rooted tensions have also emerged between indigenous communities and the Bolivian state due to the latter's zealous economic bond with the extractivist sector. Although these paradoxes have received significant attention, one substantial aspect that remains underexplored and undertheorized is how such tensions affect socio-political relations at the intersections of class, race and gender where indigenous women in Bolivia occupy a unique position. To address this research gap, this qualitative study poses the following research questions: 1. How does neo-extractivism affect the lives of indigenous women? 2. How does the state shape relations between neo-extractivism and indigenous women? 3. How do indigenous women organize to challenge the impact of state-led extractivism on their lives and their communities? To answer these questions, I conducted a multi-sited ethnographic study between October 2017 and June 2018 in Oruro, Bolivia, an area that is heavily affected by mining contamination. By analyzing processes of social reproduction, I argue that neo-extractivism leads to water contamination and water scarcity, becoming the epicenter of the deterioration of subsistence agriculture and the dispossession of indigenous ways of life. Because indigenous women are subsistence producers and social reproducers whose activities depend on water, the dispossession of water has a dire effect on them, which demonstrates how capitalism relies on and exacerbates neo-colonial and patriarchal relations. To tame dissent to these contradictions, the Bolivian and self-proclaimed "indigenist state" defines and politicizes ethnicity in order to build a national identity based on indigeneity. This state-led ethnic inclusion, however, simultaneously produces class exclusions of indigenous campesinxs (peasants) who are not fully engaged in market relations. In contrast to the government's inclusive but rigidly-defined indigeneity, indigenous communities embrace a fluid and dual indigeneity: one that is connected to territories, yet also independent from them; a rooted indigeneity based on the praxis of what it means to be indigenous. Indigenous women and their communities embrace this fluid and rooted indigeneity to build alliances across gender, ethnic, and geographic lines to organize against neo-extractivism. Moreover, the daily responsibilities of social reproduction within the context of subsistence agriculture, which are embedded in Andean epistemes of reciprocity, duality, and complementarity, have allowed indigenous women to build solidarity networks that keep the social fabric within, and between, communities alive. These solidarity networks are sites of everyday resistances that represent a threat and an alternative to capitalist, colonial and patriarchal mandates.

En octobre 2015, lors de la crise de Val-d’Or, des femmes autochtones ont témoigné à visage découvert devant la caméra de la journaliste Josée Dupuis de l’émission Enquête à Radio-Canada. Ces témoignages ont levé le voile sur les relations entre les femmes autochtones et les policiers du Québec et ont partiellement fait la lumière sur la discrimination et le racisme systémiques que vivent les Autochtones au sein de certains services publics québécois. La représentation des femmes autochtones dans la presse écrite au Canada a été historiquement empreinte de stéréotypes coloniaux et sexistes. Néanmoins, très peu d’études portent sur la presse écrite québécoise. Ainsi, la présente recherche retrace les écrits sur les femmes autochtones parus dans la presse écrite québécoise sur une période de quatre ans en lien avec la crise de Val-d’Or et le phénomène des femmes autochtones disparues et assassinées. Une analyse thématique de contenu de ces écrits est faite dans une optique postcoloniale et intersectionnelle afin de contextualiser ce phénomène large et complexe. Ce mémoire explore donc le discours et plus particulièrement la représentation des femmes autochtones dans un contexte de violence systémique. / In the midst of the Val-d’Or crisis in October 2015, several Indigenous women came forward on Radio-Canada’s television program Enquête to give an account of what they experienced. What these women told journalist Josée Dupuis shone a bright light on the relations between the Quebec provincial police and Indigenous women. It also began to reveal the systemic discrimination and racism that Indigenous people are subjected to by a number of Quebec public institutions. Throughout Canadian history, representations of Indigenous women in the press have been fraught with colonial and sexist stereotypes, but interestingly, there are few studies on the ways that the Quebec press depicted these women. In an attempt to provide a broader context for such vast and complex phenomena as the Val-d’Or crisis and the missing and murdered Indigenous women, this study develops a thematic content analysis—using a postcolonial and intersectional approach—on a collection of articles about Indigenous women published over a span of four years in the Quebec press. The aim of this dissertation is then to explore how female Indigenous discourse is framed, and especially how Indigenous women themselves are represented, in the context of violent events.