Indigenous Lands, Resisting Sexualities in Abiayala
Thursday, April 18, 1–7:30 p.m.
Friday, April 19, 9 a.m.–6 p.m.
Glickman Conference Center, RLP 1.302B | Free & open to the public; no registration required
Simultaneous translation available
THIS CONFERENCE WILL ENGAGE CONVERSATIONS at the intersections between indigeneity, bodies, and sexualities as they interweave into struggles against ongoing land dispossession and colonialism in what is known today as the Americas or Abiayala—a Kuna term to name the region as well as its North/South continental linkages.
Free and open to the public | No registration necessary | Simultaneous interpretation available
Indigeneity in relation to land is a widely debated topic. We build from this important foundation but center on Native LGBTQI+ individuals and communities who are often dismissed in hegemonic “Indigenous” politics, and vice versa. Although issues of land and sexualities are often considered separately, our conference will focus on how they may intersect and can enrich discussions on non-heteronormative sexual politics, Indigenous land liberation, and decolonization.
For us, the image of the chakana—symbol of the constellation of the Southern Cross in Andean visual culture—conveys and embodies our aspiration to build creative relations and intersections during our gathering in Austin. In Quechua, the term chakana comes from the verb chakay, which means “to put together two or more pieces of wood”; therefore, it also refers to the notion of “bridge” or “crossing.” With this relational perspective—rooted in an Indigenous concept—it is our hope that this interdisciplinary conference generates intersections among Critical Indigenous Studies, LGBTQI+ studies, gender and sexuality studies, environmental and/or earth studies, the creative arts, and the multiple Indigenous activisms on non-heteronormative and anti-patriarchal sexual and cultural politics in Abiayala as a transhemispheric Native or Indigenous notion of space/continent.
The conference will include invited artists, activists, and senior scholars from different nations of Abiayala and across the humanities, arts, and social sciences. The conference is methodologically organized and arranged engaging Indigenous principles of conversation, collaboration, and communal relations. Within this framework, the event will be organized in multi-modal “Circles of Sharing” that will feature workshops, scholarly, and artistic presentations followed by open, interactive dialogues.
We will gather to imagine the possibility of a liberatory, non-compulsory sexual politics as a critical dimension for any horizon of decolonized life.
Image © Pilar Villanueva
