Refusing (Mis)Recognition: Navigating Multiple Marginalization in the U.S. Two Spirit Movement

• Authors: Jenny L. Davis
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

I focus on the discursive strategies within Two Spirit events and groups that center the definition of ‘Two Spirit’ first and foremost as an Indigenous identity by using both unifying/mass terms (Native American, glbtiq) and culturally & community specific terms (specific tribe names, Two Spirit). Rather than selecting a “right” term, such conversations highlight the constant, simultaneous positionings negotiated by Two Spirit people in their daily lives, and the tensions between recognizability and accuracy; communality and specificity; indigeneity and settler culture; and the burden multiply marginalized people carry in negotiating between all of those metaphorical and literal spaces. Drawing on Simpson’s (2014) concept of the politics of refusal, I demonstrate how Two Spirit individuals utilize available categories of identity, not as either/or binaries but rather as overlapping concepts- differentiated along micro- and macro- scales- to refuse attempts to both reduce the Two Spirit identity to one that is based either in gender or sexuality, and the appropriation of the identity and movement by non-Indigenous individuals and groups within broader national and global queer movements.

Keywords

EN

Two-Spirit; Refusal; Indigenous social movemvents

• Publisher: University of Silesia Press
• Journal: Review of International American Studies
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 65-86

Dates

published

2019-01-22

Contributors

author

Jenny L. Davis

Identifiers

DOI

10.31261/rias.7328