Hetero-patriarchy and Settler Colonialism | Ried Gustafson | TEDxPortlandStateUniversity

Summary

The speaker, Reed Gustafson, honors indigenous peoples and addresses the ongoing impact of settler colonialism in the U.S. They discuss the imposition of heteronormative Christian monogamy on indigenous communities through federal policies like the Dawes Act, Indian Reorganization Act, and Indian Relocation Act, which aimed to assimilate and erase indigenous identities. Gustafson emphasizes the importance of indigenous critique and decolonial praxis, suggesting that moving beyond settler sex and family structures is crucial for indigenous resurgence and sustainable futures.

Takeaways

• 🌍 The speaker begins by acknowledging the indigenous peoples of the land they are on, recognizing the ongoing impact of settler colonialism on their lands and lives.
• 🏡 The script discusses how settler colonial assimilation targeted indigenous communities beyond just boarding schools, aiming to impose heteronormative Christian monogamy to change familial and gender norms.
• 👤 The speaker, Reed Gustafson, identifies as part of the Hueco tribe and Comanche tribe, and as a Swedish American, providing a personal context to the discussion.
• 📚 The talk is grounded in two-spirit scholarship, which sees a link between patriarchy and settler colonialism and its implications for indigenous critique and decolonial praxis.
• 🏛️ The critique focuses on three federal Indian policy acts: the Dawes Act, the Indian Reorganization Act, and the Indian Relocation Act, examining how they imposed heteropatriarchy on indigenous communities.
• 📉 The Dawes Act is highlighted as a means to redistribute indigenous land to male heads of households, leading to a gendered power shift favoring men and the imposition of heteronormative family structures.
• 🏙️ The Indian Reorganization Act is criticized for imposing Western-style, male-dominated governance structures on indigenous communities, altering traditional power-sharing practices.
• 🚶 The Indian Relocation Act is discussed as a policy that moved indigenous peoples to urban centers, forcing assimilation into Western capitalist society and heteronormative nuclear family structures.
• 💡 Indigenous Studies scholars argue that the imposition of heteropatriarchy was a tool for assimilation and erasure of indigenous peoples to complete the settler colonial project.
• 🌱 The talk concludes with a call to move beyond settler sexuality and family structures as a form of indigenous resurgence and a practice for sustainable futures.
• 🔍 Kim TallBear's work is highlighted, suggesting that rethinking relations and moving away from heteronormative monogamy can lead to more sustainable and community-focused ways of living.

Q & A

What is the significance of acknowledging indigenous peoples' ancestral homelands at the beginning of the talk?

The acknowledgment serves to honor the indigenous people whose lands are currently being occupied, recognizing their ongoing presence and the historical and ongoing impacts of settler colonialism on their communities.

What is the main argument presented by Reed Gustafson in the script?

Reed Gustafson argues that settler colonialism has imposed heteronormative Christian monogamy on indigenous communities as part of the assimilation process, which has affected sexual practices, familial structures, gender norms, and power dynamics within these communities.

What are the three federal Indian policy acts discussed in the script, and how do they relate to the imposition of heteropatriarchy?

The three acts are the Dawes Act, the Indian Reorganization Act, and the Indian Relocation Act. They are discussed in relation to how they imposed heteropatriarchy on indigenous communities by altering land ownership, government structures, and living conditions to favor a Western, patriarchal model.

How did the Dawes Act impact indigenous land ownership and family structures?

The Dawes Act divided communal indigenous land into individual private property plots given to native male heads of households, forcing a shift towards heteronormative nuclear family structures and granting men increased control over property and political rights as US citizens.

What was the purpose of the Indian Reorganization Act in terms of indigenous governance?

The Indian Reorganization Act aimed to impose Western-style, male-dominated representational models of government on indigenous communities, creating tribal councils that mirrored American government structures and reinforced gendered power dynamics.

What were the consequences of the Indian Relocation Act for indigenous peoples?

The Indian Relocation Act removed indigenous peoples from reservations and moved them into urban centers, assimilating them into Western capitalism and heteronormative nuclear family structures, while also subjecting them to gendered workforce dynamics that favored men.

How does the script connect heteropatriarchy to the broader goals of settler colonialism?

The script suggests that the imposition of heteropatriarchy was a strategic part of the settler colonial project, aimed at assimilating indigenous peoples into Western culture and erasing their distinct identities and ways of life.

What role do indigenous studies scholars play in the analysis presented in the script?

Indigenous studies scholars provide critical perspectives and frameworks for understanding the impact of settler colonial policies on indigenous communities, offering insights into the ways these policies have shaped sexual, familial, and power dynamics.

What is the concept of 'settler sex and family' as discussed in the script?

'Settler sex and family' refers to the heteronormative, patriarchal sexual and familial norms and structures imposed by settler colonialism on indigenous communities as part of the assimilation process.

How does Kim TallBear's research challenge the notion of heteronormative monogamy in relation to resource use and sustainability?

Kim TallBear's research suggests that heteronormative monogamy, as a basic relational building block in Western societies, contributes to unsustainable resource use and hoarding. She calls for a reevaluation of relations with the goal of promoting communal life and sustainability.

What are some of the guidelines provided by indigenous studies scholars for moving beyond settler sex and family as a resurgence practice?

The guidelines include centering relationality in relations, ensuring power is shared reciprocally, using intimacy for healing rather than harm, and building and maintaining strong community bonds as part of a decolonial praxis.

Outlines

00:00

🙌 Acknowledging Indigenous Lands and Settler Colonialism

The speaker begins by honoring the indigenous peoples of the land they stand on, specifically naming the Multnomah, Clackamas, and other tribes along the Columbia River. They acknowledge the ongoing structure of settler colonialism in the United States, which continues to impact indigenous lands and peoples. The speaker introduces themselves, Reed Gustafson, with a personal connection to indigenous tribes and a Swedish American heritage. They set the stage for a discussion on how settler colonialism targeted indigenous intimate nature through assimilation processes, such as boarding schools and the imposition of heteronormative Christian monogamy, with the ultimate goal of assimilation and erasure of indigenous identities. The talk is grounded in two-spirit scholarship, which links patriarchy and settler colonialism, and critiques federal Indian policy acts like the Dawes Act, the Indian Reorganization Act, and the Indian Relocation Act for their role in imposing heteropatriarchy.

05:01

🏛 Impact of Federal Acts on Indigenous Communities

This paragraph delves into the specific impacts of the Dawes Act of 1887, the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, and the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 on indigenous communities. The Dawes Act, also known as the Allotment Act, divided communal indigenous lands into individual plots for native male heads of households, leading to a land grab by settlers and a shift towards heteropatriarchy as these men gained control over property and US citizenship. The Indian Reorganization Act imposed western-style, male-dominated governance structures on indigenous communities, disrupting traditional gender balance and power-sharing practices. The Indian Relocation Act aimed to assimilate indigenous peoples into urban centers and Western capitalism by moving them off reservations, further reinforcing heteronormative family structures and gender roles. The speaker highlights the need for indigenous studies scholars to engage with discourses of sexuality in their critiques of colonialism and the importance of moving beyond settler sex and family structures as part of decolonial praxis.

10:02

🌱 Indigenous Resurgence and Moving Beyond Settler Sexuality

The final paragraph summarizes the discussion on the imposition of heteropatriarchy through federal acts and calls for indigenous resurgence practices that move beyond these imposed sexual and family norms. It emphasizes the importance of reevaluating relations to ensure they strengthen community, promote reciprocal power-sharing, and heal rather than harm. The speaker cites Kim TallBear, who challenges the sustainability of heteronormative monogamy and its impact on resource hoarding and objectification of human beings. TallBear offers guidelines for creating relations that support communal life and oppose the compulsory settler sexuality and family system. The speaker concludes by urging collective action against these systems and advocating for policies that support a more inclusive definition of family, ending with a call to oppose norms that marginalize indigenous and other non-normative relations.

Keywords

💡Indigenous People

Indigenous people refer to the original inhabitants of a land, who have a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies. In the context of the video, the speaker honors the indigenous tribes of the area where the event is held, such as the Multnomah, Clackamas, and others, emphasizing their ancestral connection to the land and acknowledging the ongoing impact of settler colonialism on their lives.

💡Settler Colonialism

Settler colonialism is a structure of domination where settlers invade and establish permanent residence on lands that are not their own, often leading to the displacement or subjugation of indigenous peoples. The video discusses how this is not a historical event but an ongoing process that continues to affect indigenous lands and communities, including through the erasure of indigenous identities.

Highlights

Honoring indigenous people and acknowledging the ongoing structure of settler colonialism.

Introduction of Reed Gustafson, with tribal and Swedish American heritage.

Settler colonial assimilation targeted intimate natures of indigenous peoples beyond boarding schools.

Imposition of heteronormative Christian monogamy on indigenous communities to change familial structures and gender norms.

The critique grounded in two-spirit scholarship linking patriarchy and settler colonialism.

Analysis of the Dawes Act, its impact on land distribution, and the imposition of heteropatriarchy.

The Indian Reorganization Act imposed Western-style government models favoring male power.

The Indian Relocation Act aimed to assimilate indigenous peoples into urban centers and Western capitalism.

Consequences of the acts discussed through the lens of indigenous studies scholars.

Critique of the erasure of indigenous peoples as part of the settler colonial project.

Engagement with discourses of sexuality in critiques of colonialism as a call to action.

Theorizing monogamy's impact on resource hoarding and objectification in Western societies.

Guidelines for reevaluating relations to build strong communities and share power reciprocally.

Decolonization as a collective effort to oppose compulsory settler sexuality and family.

Advocating for policies supporting a more expansive definition of family.

Encouraging non-monogamous bonds and opposing norms as part of decolonial praxis.

Final thoughts on moving beyond settler sex and family for sustainable futures.

Transcripts

I'd like to begin by honoring the

indigenous people whose traditional and

ancestral homelands are where we stand

specifically the Multnomah the Clackamas

the tomb water the cats lament the while

alabanza the chinook in the to wallet in

california peoples and also the many

other indigenous nations along the

Columbia River I would also like to

acknowledge that settler colonialism in

the United States is not an event that

ended in the past but rather a structure

of violence that continues to reproduce

itself on the saft of indigenous lands

and on the erasure and genocide of

indigenous bodies and so for us living

on lands that we are not indigenous to

we do assist in maintaining and

upholding the structure of violence by

doing so that being said my name is Reed

Gustafson I hope everyone's doing good

tonight on my mother's side I'm enrolled

with the hueco tribe and a descendant of

the Comanche tribe and on my father's

side I'm Swedish American on my mother's

side we're of the corn and the Sun clans

and our Quaker homeland is located about

40 miles west of so-called Albuquerque

New Mexico and you can see our territory

in the photograph behind me today I

would like to discuss how settler

colonial assimilation processes targeted

the intimate nature's of indigenous

peoples beyond removing indigenous

children from their homes and cultures

and putting them in boarding schools in

order to program their minds settler

colonial assimilation processes look to

impose heteronormative Christian

monogamy on indigenous communities in

the hopes to change sexual practices

familial structures gender norms and

power dynamics within these communities

ultimately the goal though was to

assimilate indigenous peoples and erase

them in order to complete the settler

colonial project my work around this

topic is very much indebted to the work

of indigenous studies scholars and

indigenous writers I would like to thank

ho asta Mohana

Kim tall bear Chris Finley Coley

Driscoll Linda - ye Smith Leslie Marmon

Silko and polygon Allen for helping

shape my lens for analysis on this topic

today's talk will be grounded in

two-spirit scholarship which understands

an inextricable link between

patriarchy and settler colonialism and

also understands this link to be an

important site for indigenous critique

and decolonial praxis and so today's

talk will largely be a critique of three

important federal Indian policy acts the

Dawes Act the Indian Reorganization Act

and the Indian relocation act this

critique will look at how these act

serves to impose hetero patriarchy on

the communities affected and then the

end of this talk will be a look at how

we can think about moving beyond settler

sex and family as a resurgence practice

and also as a practice that has

implications for sustainable futures for

generations to come in 1887 the US

government passed the Dawes Act also

known as the allotment act this act sir

excuse me this Act gave the President of

the United States the powers to survey

indigenous land which at this time was

held in common once the land was

surveyed then it was divided into

individual private property plots and

these plots were distributed to native

male head of households at this time the

native male would also become US citizen

many scholars have written about how

this act served as the settler land grab

and this is because after the land was

distributed to the native males the

surplus land was then sold off the

settler populations and you can see an

advertisement for this in the photograph

behind me however not as many scholars

have written about how this act also

served to impose hetero patriarchy on

the communities that were affected by it

so for indigenous communities that

didn't necessarily practice

heteronormative nuclear family

structures they were coerced into

reordering themselves into families with

one man and one woman in order to keep

the land that they had been living on

and secondly there was a gendered power

shift towards hetero patriarchy because

of this act this was because as I said

the native male head of household would

now be in control of the newly

established property and also have

expanded political rights as US citizens

in 1934 the US government passed the

Indian Reorganization Act which served

to impose western-style representational

models of government on indigenous

communities

these newly established tribal councils

largely mirrored American government

where males were in positions of power

so for indigenous communities who spread

power horizontally between genders there

was a gendered power shift because these

newly tried newly established tribal

councils were largely staffed by males

and also native males were able to

internalize and benefit from this new

power and it benefits them to continue

to uphold this structure in 1956 the US

government passed the Indian relocation

Act which served to remove indigenous

peoples from reservation land and move

them into urban centers at this time the

US government was decreasing its funding

for populations living on reservations

while increasing its funding to actual

relocation funds and job training in

order to assimilate indigenous peoples

into Western capitalism at this time on

reservation land kinship structures were

largely still in place so removing

indigenous people from kinship and

moving them into urban centers where the

normative family structure was

heteronormative and nuclear operated to

assimilate indigenous peoples into this

way of being and furthermore there's

also a gendered power shift with this

act as well because indigenous peoples

were moving into the gendered workforce

of the 1950s where hiring practices

largely favored men in the workplace as

the breadwinners and women were

relegated to the home as homemakers and

so for indigenous communities that

didn't necessarily have these strict

divisions of labor and gender roles in

order for them to have any bit of

success within urban centers they had to

assimilate into this Western capitalist

kind of way of being now that I've

discussed the Indian Reorganization act

the Indian relocation Act and the Dawes

Act I'd like to turn to a discussion of

what Indigenous Studies scholars are

saying have been some of the

consequences and how indigenous study

scholars are looking at moving beyond

settler sex and family as a resurgence

practice indigenous studies scholar

Chris Finlay who was a member of the

Colville Confederated Tribes states in

her article decolonizing the queer

native

that we can use Michele Foucault is

theorization of sexuality as a site for

the enactment of state power to look at

the imposition of hetero patriarchy on

indigenous communities heavier hetero

patriarchy is a structure on communities

or society which favors and prioritizes

the male gender and also heterosexuality

and subjugates all other subject

positions and ways of being so for

indigenous communities that didn't

necessarily have this strict structure

in place it was necessary for the

government to impose that in order to

assimilate them into Western American

culture but the ultimate goal of this

was to erase indigenous peoples in order

to complete the settler colonial project

Kim tall bear also tells us that

indigenous sexualities were always

characterized as deviant or morally

transgressive by us colonizers and this

was kind of an important belief that

justified colonialism because if native

peoples were unable to govern themselves

in the most intimate ways and they were

unable to govern themselves at all and

so this kind of justified the entirety

of the settler colonial project Finlay

also tells us that up until recently

native scholars have largely remained

silent with engaging discourses of

sexuality when within their critiques of

colonialism and this is because sexual

violence has been used as a weapon

against native peoples for hundreds of

years and so in order to protect

ourselves we've gone quiet but Finley

calls on native study scholars to engage

discourses of sexuality in their

critiques of colonialism she asks us can

we truly decolonize ourselves without

taking colonial discourses of sexuality

seriously Kim tall bear who is enrolled

with the success Don Wahpeton oy8 and a

descendant of the Cheyenne and Arapaho

tribes of Oklahoma responds to tall

bears question in her article making

love and relations beyond settler sex

and family tall bear states that if we

truly consider everything in our life to

be interconnected then we must take

seriously the implications that monogamy

has on our desires to hoard resources

and our desires to objectify human

beings and that monogamy may be

caustic and detrimental to communal life

it's all bare theorizes that if

heteronormative monogamy is kind of the

basic relational building block within a

society then the idea is that you can

hoard another human and tall bear thinks

that this idea spreads into a vast

misuse of resources and hoarding of

resources Tod bears research looks at

Western societies that as a normative

practice use heteronormative monogamy

and these are the societies that are

using a vast amount of the world's

resources an unsustainable level so tall

bear asks us to rethink our relations

with specific goals in mind she asks us

to use specific guidelines and these

guidelines are to Center relationality

in our relations to ensure that power is

being shared reciprocally in our

relations by all members to use our

intimacy's to heal ourselves and others

rather than hurt and to make sure that

our relations operate to build and

maintain strong community

so in conclusion today I've briefly

discussed how the Dawes Act the Indian

Reorganization Act and the Indian

relocation act all served to impose

hetero patriarchy on indigenous

communities I hope that I brought to

light that settler colonialism is not

just the theft of indigenous land but it

also includes imposing very specific

sexual norms gender norms power dynamics

and family structures on indigenous

peoples in order to assimilate them

moving forward I think we can look at

moving beyond settler sexuality as an

indigenous resurgence practice or also a

practice for non-native peoples who are

concerned with sustainable futures I'd

like to recap the guidelines that tall

bear gives us for reevaluate our

relations tall bear asks us to ask

ourselves if our relations operate to

strengthen relation allottee if they

operate to build and maintain strong

community if we're healing with our

intimacy's rather than hurting and if we

are sharing power reciprocally in our

relations and if we're not tall bear

things that we should find new ways to

relate to each

so in conclusion I'd like to leave you

with a quote by Tom bear where she gives

us a couple of specific steps that we

can take moving forward if we're serious

about moving beyond settler sex and

family decolonization is not an

individual choice we must collectively

oppose the system of compulsory settler

sexuality and family that continues

building a nation upon indigenous

genocide and that marks indigenous and

other marginalized relations as deviant

this includes opposing norms and

supporting living within or supporting

those living within non-monogamous bonds

it includes advocating policies that

support a more expansive definition of

family and not rewarding normative

family structures with social and

financial benefits I want to thank

everyone for coming tonight and

especially my close friends who were

able to make it so thank you

[Applause]

[Music]