Date Awarded

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Department

American Studies

Advisor

Michelle Lelièvre

Committee Member

Simon Stow

Committee Member

Leisa Meyer

Abstract

This thesis began as an exploration of the individual resistances of Indigenous American women, in response to the crisis of gender-based violence targeting Indian country. The purpose of this work is to investigate the United States’ border culture of sexual violence against Indigenous women, as well as the intimate resistances of these women voiced through the podcasting platform. Within this portfolio, I draw upon the theoretical frameworks of Gloria Anzaldua, Iris Marion Young, Saidiya Hartman, Melissa K. Nelson, Kim Tallbear to support the central thesis. With the first chapter, I expand Anzaldua’s borderland to Native America, to contend that the epidemic of sexual violence against Indigenous women is an intended consequence of the state’s masculinist logic, an exertion of colonial power. Through the second chapter, I construct the concept of resistant intimacy; that is, a resistance that is amassed by the creation and continuance of love and sexuality, despite the threat of gender-based brutality. Particularly, I analyze the podcasts of Indigenous women for scenes of resistant intimacy, as it is practiced and communicated to an online community of listeners. It is through this community, connected by digital means, empowered through love and pleasure, that a larger resistance is established, one that actively deconstructs the violence of the colonial state.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.21220/s2-ta42-sy95

Rights

© The Author

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