The Poetics & Politics of Indigenous Women's Sovereignty

Indigenous women's sovereignty is articulated in oral tradition, in poetic verse, and in political action. The author reads here from the book's introduction to describe how Yaqui and Salish oral traditions account for women's unique role in engendering and responding to chang and colonialism. Borrowing from Joy Harjo's poem "Returning from the Enemy," the author notes that Indigenous women's sovereignty is an embodied and deeply personal terrain.