"What a Native Looks Like": Academic Feminist Spaces, the Logic of Elimination, and Survivance

I write to share ways I have seen Native colleagues and their knowledges (Native, feminist, and otherwise) denied and rejected in feminist academic spaces. I also write to think through my responses to these incidents, in the moment and after the fact, as I grapple with my responsibilities as a non-Native feminist. The attempts I witnessed to eliminate/disappear/erase these colleagues fell into three broad categories: not being recognized as "real" Natives; not being seen as adequately feminist; and disappearing behind/into a near totalizing Black-white racial binary. These occurrences are homegrown demonstrations of the structural persistence of settler colonialism manifest in the logic of elimination. Overall, this paper argues that feminist academic spaces are often hostile territory for Native scholars who face attempts at elimination upon entering them. "Survivance" and "resurgence" assist these Native academics in their navigation of these territories, in their refusal of erasure, in their struggles for decolonization. Non-Natives wishing to facilitate that navigation and Native presence in the academy can learn to recognize these acts of resurgence and deepen our understanding of, and commitment to, decolonization.