Indigenous Feminist Narratives: I/We: Wo(men) of an(Other) Way

126 Pages·2015·1.808 MB·English

by  Isabel Dulfano (auth.)

Indigenous Feminist Narratives
DOI: 10.1057/9781137531315.0001
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DOI: 10.1057/9781137531315.0001
Indigenous Feminist
Narratives
I/We: Wo(men) of
an(Other) Way
Isabel Dulfano
University of Utah, USA
DOI: 10.1057/9781137531315.0001
© Isabel Dulfano 2015
Chapter 3 © Irma Velásquez Nimatuj 2015
Chapter 4 © Luz María de la Torre Amaguana 2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-53130-8
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
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in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2015 by
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ISBN: 978-1-137-53131-5 PDF
ISBN: 978-1-349-50686-6
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www.palgrave.com/pivot
DOI: 10.1057/9781137531315
For Isaac, Ali, Maia, Shoshi, and MJD with cariño
With thanks to my loving mothers and sisters: Celia,
Marga, Anne, Guila, Sharon, and the rest
DOI: 10.1057/9781137531315.0001
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 Canonical Representations of Indigenous
Women in Latin American Literature 14
2 Notes on Indigenous Feminism
Post-Testimonial 30
3 Memory/Memoir, Challenges, and
Anthropology 50
Irma Velásquez Nimatuj, translated by
Isabel Dulfano
4 What Does It Mean to Be an Indigenous
Woman in Contemporary Times? 81
Luz María de la Torre Amaguana,
translated by Isabel Dulfano
Conclusion 97
References 105
Index 112
vi DOI: 10.1057/9781137531315.0001
Acknowledgments
The inspiration for this project was sparked during a
Fulbright Commission Group Study Abroad project
to Ecuador in 2004. I thank the U.S. Department of
Education for providing that opportunity and am espe-
cially grateful to Ken Jameson for asking me to participate.
At that time, I met Luz María de la Torre Amaguaña, who
spoke at the Fulbright Commission in Quito. After that
thought-provoking voyage, I received additional fund-
ing for research and travel from several sources at the
University of Utah. I would like to acknowledge generous
support from the College of Humanities and Dean Robert
Newman in the form of international travel grants and
research leave. In addition, I am grateful to the University
of Utah for supporting my sabbatical after many years of
teaching and as a faculty fellow during 2014–15. Research
for this manuscript took me to Bolivia, Mexico, Peru, and
Guatemala, funded primarily by the University Creative
Research Grant awarded for 2014–15.
In 2005, I received a Dee Humanities Council grant
to develop a new course on Indigenous writing and
culture. That intellectual endeavor opened a space to
explore this subject from a multidisciplinary approach.
The class brought together scholars from linguistics,
history, economics, political science, business, educa-
tion, and anthropology. Luz María came to spend
a week presenting to graduate and undergraduate
students around our campus. That cross-pollination
and intersectional analysis informed the way I would
examine Indigenous feminist writing and the alternative
DOI: 10.1057/9781137531315.0002 vii
viii Acknowledgments
knowledge production emanating from contemporary Indigenous
female writers.
In the fall of 2013, I presented some research at LASA-ERIP in Mexico.
After the final day in Oaxaca, during massive Indigenous street protests,
I attended a dinner where I met Irma Velásquez Nimatuj, and we realized
there were points of convergence in our research agenda. From there
arose an invaluable collaboration with another extraordinary woman.
Each purveyed a closer, more intimate perspective and understanding
of Indigenous women’s knowledge production, their discourse, theori-
zation, personal experiences, and literary expression. Previously Luz
María and I had spent one summer teaching at the Middlebury College
Summer Language Program, where we spoke endlessly about these ideas.
My thanks go out to Dr Susan Carvalho, director of the Middlebury
summer Spanish school at the time, who had the insight to invite Luz
María to the campus and highlighted Inti Raymi and Indigenous topics
as the program theme that year.
Adding another rich layer, Irma dedicated several days in her home
office in Xela to editing the manuscript and conversing with me. She
asked me to travel there to get a firsthand view of her space. Aura Cumes
also extended a kind invitation to Chimaltenango, where we discussed
her doctoral research, Guatemalan Indigenous feminist writers, and
other related topics.
On the home front, the continuous positive support, conversations,
and extensive editorial assistance from Dr. Anne Fuller and Ali Bromley-
Dulfano helped to make this a stronger final product. I have taught
various iterations of the Indigenous class and have been enriched every
time by the extraordinary insights my students shared with me. Every
class brought fresh commentary about their readings and the organiza-
tion of the thematic threads running through our interrogation of the
Indian problem and Indigenous feminism. I especially want to thank
Betty Aguirre Maier, Luz Lara, Carolina Singer, Paola Prieto, and Victor
Zabala, Jordan McCormack, Caleb Braley, and Carmen Fernandez from
the Spanish graduate program. Numerous other colleagues like Jane
Hacking, my weekly writing partner; Robert Behra, research and infor-
mation services collections steward and collections coordinator at the J.
Willard Marriott Library; and Christine Jones were instrumental in the
writing, research, or sounding out of different ideas.
Finally, my children have all generously participated in dinner conver-
sations about Indigenous feminism and the women who have taken
DOI: 10.1057/9781137531315.0002
Acknowledgments ix
the dialogue, discourse, and agenda to a new level of engagement. The
unending encouragement that Maia, Isaac, Ali, and Shoshi have given
to this long writing process nurtured the freedom to travel and write on
many days when I would rather have spent time with them, yet I always
knew their love was constant and my obligations had to be split.
Chapter3 has been translated from De la Torre Amaguana, Luz Maria.
2010. Qué significa ser mujer indígena en la contemporaneidad? Mester,
39 (1): 1–25, with kind permission of the author.
Chapter 4 has been translated from Velásquez Nimatuj, Irma Alicia.
2005. “Memoria, desafíos, antropología.” Pueblos indigenas, estado, y
lucha por tierra en Guatemala. Estrategias de sobrevivencia y negoci-
ación ante la desigualdad globalizada. Unpublished PhD Dissertation.
Department of Anthropology. Austin: University of Texas, with kind
permission of the author.
DOI: 10.1057/9781137531315.0002