GRSJ 301: Gender, Race & Indigeneity in Canada

Instructor: Natacha Montesel Mora


Gender and indigeneity in the documented histories and narrated lives of Indigenous people in Canada. Recommended pre-requisites: all of GRSJ 101, GRSJ 102, or third-year standing.


Term 2

Description:

This course examines the history, narratives, literature, and artwork documenting Indigenous peoples’ ways of living and knowing from intersectional, feminist, queer, and two-spirits perspectives. It will begin with a review of the history of colonization in the Americas, settling the roots of the current neoliberal, racist, and patriarchal globalized social order. We will build in the work of decolonial authors supporting the argument that colonization created the historical conditions for the triumph of the current socioeconomic, legal, political, epistemological, and discursive global world system (e.g., Grosfoguel, 2007; Quijano, 2010).

The course will also draw on scholarship accounting for Canada’s specific history of colonization and Indigenous system of knowledge, including ways to learn, heal, reconcile, and collectively deal with the systematic oppression and multigenerational trauma. We will pay special attention to Indigenous GLBTQ2+ people’s and women’s stories, narratives, art, and community work.