Hi everyone, I thought this was a week when we were supposed to contribute the the discussion forum, but I haven’t seen any other comments yet, so I thought I’d get a conversation started. Our group is busy getting ready for our presentation this week. It is honestly a bit stressful, but really rewarding to see how all the hard work from this semester is coming together. I have learned so much in this class, and I know that my future research and research practices will be really influenced by this.
courtenay desiree crane
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courtenay desiree crane
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courtenay desiree crane
Just adding to the conversation about gender, I think that the research that was conducted showed less about what traits are characteristic of men and women, but instead reflected how gender is constructed in society. I think that this week’s reading “Navigating the city: gender and positionality in cultural geography research” really complimented this week’s activity as it discusses gender and research. I found it really useful in helping to consider the relationship between gender and the methodology that we employ in our research. The authors write: “When we consider gender, we not only reference the physical qualities associated with gender differences but most importantly also refer to socially constructed gender roles” (153).
I think that the results of the survey illustrated the limitations that come with only recognizing two genders, male and female. I believe that gender should not be something that you just tick off in a box as either as male or female; perhaps a blank space for the participant to provide their own way of identifying would be more suitable. In the article “Native gay and lesbian issues: The two-spirited” Terry Tafoya offers a good overview of traditional Indigenous concepts of gender that are quite different from the Canadian constructions of gender that were long imposed on Indigenous peoples. In mainstream Canadian society, gender is often constructed as…
“polar opposites, or different ends of the same stick. One is either/or, male or female, gay or straight. Native American concepts usually prefer circles to lines. If one takes the line of male/female, gay/straight, and bends it into a circle, there are an infinite number of points. Just so, there are theoretically an infinite number of possible points of gender and sexual identity for an individual who can shift and differ over time and location” (407).
This article is quite appropriate for our discussion of leadership, which, in Canadian society, has been dominated by men. If I remember correctly the leadership gender survey took place at a university in the states, which, like Canada is a settler colonial society, where males have dominated leadership positions. Prior to contact, many Indigenous communities were matriarchal and women often occupied leadership roles. This changed with the imposition of the Indian Act, which made it mandatory for Indians on reserves to vote in band office elections instead of using traditional forms of Indigenous governance, and denied women the right to vote or to be elected chief until 1951. These imposed Canadian concepts of gender and leadership were very different from traditional Indigenous understandings.
“Historically the status of a two-spirit person was valued in many native communities, since an ordinary male sees the world through male eyes and an ordinary female sees the world through female eyes. However, a two-spirited person (who possesses both a male and female spirit, regardless of the flesh that is worn) will always see further. For this reason, many two-spirited people have become medicine people, leaders, and intermediaries between men and women… Their greater flexibility provides them with greater possibilities of discovering alternative ways of seeing themselves and the world.”References
Kusek, Weronika A., and Sarah L. Smiley. “Navigating the City: Gender and Positionality in Cultural Geography Research.” Journal of Cultural Geography 31.2 (2014): 152-65. WebTafoya, Terry. “Native gay and lesbian issues: The two-spirited.” Psychological perspectives on lesbian, gay, and bisexual experiences (2003): 401-409.
bridgitte taylor 9:23 pm on April 3, 2016 Permalink |
Just to add to this conversation – I agree, it’s really unbelievable that soon we’ll be in Williams Lake! This makes me both excited and nervous. On one hand, my groups’ research has really been solidified over the past couple weeks, and we’ve learned a lot via phone interviews, etc…However, we’re now struggling to find focus group participants, as it seems we’re playing phone tag with a lot of the contacts we’ve been directed to. This is making it difficult to organize for the trip up there, but also gives us insights into the process of “remote research” which is likely at least some part of any field research project that would be conducted outside your own community. I’m wondering if anyone else is having similar challenges?