Indigenous women and work : from labor to activism

Williams, Carol, 1956- (Added Author).

Summary: "The essays in Indigenous Women and Work create a transnational and comparative dialogue on the history of the productive and reproductive lives and circumstances of Indigenous women from the late nineteenth century to the present in the United States, Australia, New Zealand/Aotearoa, and Canada. Surveying the spectrum of Indigenous women's lives and circumstances as workers, both waged and unwaged, the contributors offer varied perspectives on the ways women's work has contributed to the survival of communities in the face of ongoing tensions between assimilation and colonization. They also interpret how individual nations have conceived of Indigenous women as workers and, in turn, convert these assumptions and definitions into policy and practice. The essays address the intersection of Indigenous, women's, and labor history, but will also be useful to contemporary policy makers, tribal activists, and Native American women's advocacy associations."--Publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9780252078682 (pbk.)
Physical Description: print
xiv, 299 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Publisher: Urbana, IL : University of Illinois Press, 2012.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction / Carol Williams -- Aboriginal women and work across the 49th parallel: historical antecedents and new challenges / Joan Sangster -- Making a living: Anishinaabe women in Michigan's changing economy / Alice Littlefield -- Procuring passage: southern Australian aboriginal women and the early Maritime industry of sealing / Lynette Russell -- The contours of agency: women's work, race, and Queensland's indenture labor trade / Tracey Banivanua Mar -- From "superabundance" to dependency: women agriculturalists and the negotiation of colonialism and capitalism for reservation-era Lummi / Chris Friday -- "We were real Skookum women": the shishalh economy and the logging industry on the Pacific northwest coast / Susan Roy and Ruth Taylor -- Unraveling the narratives of nostalgia: Navajo weavers and globalization / Kathy M'Closkey -- Labor and leisure in the "enchanted summer land": Anishinaabe women's work and the growth of Wisconsin tourism, 1900-1940 / Melissa Rohde -- Nimble fingers and strong backs: First Nations and Métis women in fur trade and rural economies / Sherry Farrell Racette -- Northfork Mono women's agricultural work, “productive coexistence," and social well-being in the San Joaquin Valley, California, circa 1850-1950 / Heather A. Howard -- Diverted mothering among American Indian domestic servants, 1920-1940 / Margaret D. Jacobs -- Charity or industry? American Indian women and work relief in the New Deal era / Colleen O'Neill -- "An Indian teacher among the Indians": Native women as federal employees / Cathleen D. Cahill --"Assaulting the ears of government": the Indian homemakers' clubs and the Maori Women's Welfare League in their formative years / Aroha Harris and Mary Jane Logan McCallum -- Politically purposeful work: Ojibwe women's labor and leadership in postwar Minneapolis / Brenda J. Child -- Maori sovereignty, black feminism, and the New Zealand trade union movement / Cybèle Locke -- Beading lesson / Beth H. Piatote.