Blurred Boundaries, Feminisms, and Indigenisms: Cocreating an Indigenous Oral History for Decolonization

This article is about Indigenous oral histories and Indigenous feminisms as understood by a settler. It builds from critiques that urge gender and women’s studies to break out of the focus on parity and consider intersecting issues of settler colonialism and the decolonizing work necessary for achieving autonomy locally. I draw from my research collaboration with the Cree Nation of Chisasibi that traces the community’s process of developing a culturally safe model of care to explore epistemological and methodological practices codeveloped with my research partners. I then explore the ways in which these practices can inform the field of feminist oral history by insisting on foregrounding place-based culturally informed priorities.