While awareness of the sexual and gendered colonial violence faced by Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQI+ people has grown, the field of Indigenous law and beyond has yet to fully engage with Indigenous feminisms, gender, and sexuality in a sustained way. Ravens Talking challenges this gap, treating Indigenous feminisms as essential, insightful, and deeply transformative.
Through critical feminist analyses, this book examines key issues in Indigenous law, demonstrating how legal understandings shift when gender is consistently, meaningfully, and creatively engaged. The contributors to this collection confront the forms of power shaping these essential conversations and bring to the fore intergenerational Indigenous feminisms; Indigenous law and gender; the forms of expression and translation between and across legal and political worlds; and the rich array of disagreements and conflicts between Indigenous women. Ravens Talking intends to capture the complexities arising from Indigenous feminisms in living contexts to provoke questions and develop critical perspectives.
Both intellectually rigorous and practically grounded, Ravens Talking is a vital contribution encouraging dialogue on Indigenous legal traditions, justice, and sovereignty.
By:
Rebecca Johnson,
Debra McKenzie,
Dr. Val Napoleon,
Emily Snyder
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 19mm
Weight: 530g
ISBN: 9781487551421
ISBN 10: 1487551428
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 08 April 2026
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
1.Indigenous Women Talking: The Work of Indigenous Feminisms in the World Val Napoleon 2.Introduction: Indigenous Feminist Legal Studies Emily Snyder 3.Nêhiyaw Ceremony, Gendered Protocols, and Nêhiyaw Law Darcy Lindberg 4.Understanding Indigenous Womxn’s Economic Sovereignty through Story waaseyaa’sin Christine Sy 5.Giving Voice to Jigonsaseh: A Feminine Perspective on the Haudenosaunee Legal Order Kahente Horn-Miller 6.What if Survivors Wrote the Laws? An Indigenous Feminist Audit of Tribal Sexual Assault in the United States Sarah Deer 7.Deliberating Feminist Legal Strategies in R v Barton Julie Kaye & Emily Snyder 8.Visualizing Violence Against Indigenous Women: Documentary Film as Disruption in Finding Dawn and American Outrage Cheryl Suzack 9.Sovereign Refusals: Spending Time with Apak in the Journals of Knud Rasmussen Rebecca Johnson 10.Thoughts and Questions and Questions Kim Pate & Val Napoleon
Rebecca Johnson is a professor of law and the associate director of the Indigenous Law Research Unit in the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria. Debra McKenzie is a research coordinator in the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria. Val Napoleon is a professor, the director of the Indigenous Law Research Unit, and the Law Foundation Chair of Indigenous Justice and Governance in the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria. Emily Snyder is an associate professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia.
