RIGHTS
Here’s how indigenous women fight for their rights
Recent research finds struggle for territorial rights can also pave way for collective indigenous and individual women’s rights.
On October 14, we celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the U.S., a day to honor the cultures and commemorate the histories of Indigenous peoples. It’s also a day to reflect on the challenges they continue to face, which include discrimination, inequality, and violence.
One group that’s particularly vulnerable is Indigenous women.
Recent research finds that indigenous women in Peru, for example, invoke the phrase “our body is our territory,” to argue for their rights. Peruvian Indigenous women employ the concept of “territoriality” to link their fight for collective indigenous rights and individual women’s rights. This approach is based on the idea that their bodies are their territory and they should have autonomy over their body as well as over the land they exist on.
In the article, “My body, my territory: Indigenous women, territoriality, and the rights of cultural minorities” published in Politics, Groups, and Identities, John Jay College political scientist Karla Mundim focused on indigenous women in Peru. She found that protecting indigenous cultures doesn’t reinforce oppression but instead can mobilize groups in the struggle for territorial rights and that this mobilization can pave the way for other rights. Mundim argues there doesn’t have to be a choice between collective rights and individual rights — they can reinforce one another, as Indigenous women in Peru fighting for a more just and equitable society illustrate.
Mundim interviewed leaders of two prominent Indigenous women’s organizations in 2017 and 2019. These interviews revealed the motivations behind identifying with the larger movement for collective indigenous rights while also acknowledging the necessary changes that must be made.
One interviewee said, “Of course we cannot leave our cultures and traditions behind, this always has to be well positioned at the forefront of our struggle. But the fact that I have my culture, it is true, patriarchal and very sexist, doesn’t mean that I have to forget the territory of my body, right?”
Indigenous women in Peru have been challenging patriarchal practices within their cultures while at the same time advocating for the protection and articulation of their group rights.
The fight of these Indigenous women would be insignificant without the support of the collective movement for territorial rights. This research aims to recognize the harm done by limiting cultural diversity by restricting territorial rights. It challenges the assumption that minority groups within these cultures, such as the indigenous women of Peru, would agree with this restriction because they are denied rights within their own culture.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the U.S. serves as a reminder that the fight for Indigenous rights is far from over. The struggles of Indigenous women in Peru illustrate that the fight for justice and equality is multidimensional, rooted in both the personal and the collective. Their efforts demonstrate how the fight for collective territorial rights can uplift individual rights, including bodily autonomy.
This post is part of a 3Streams partnership with the Minority Serving Institution Research Academy (MSIRA) at UC Riverside.
