Title of Submission
Carole laFavor’s Health Sovereignty Activism and Two-Spirit Traces
Submission Abstract
I propose a poster submission on my recent scholarly work recovering Anishinaabe lesbian Carole laFavor’s writing and activism. The abstract offers an overview of the project.
We live in a moment of abundance. Queer Indigenous literature, theory, and erotics are everywhere and Two-Spirit peoples are not only here and queer, but are taking over the universe. Queer Native artists and activists are writing, beading, loving, painting, making films, making out, and making space for their work and words in the world. As is always the case, such moments of intense visibility--of Two-Spirit powwows, of special issues on queer Indigenous literature and critiques, of Indigenous erotic art installations--arise from many years in which folks loved and created in less welcoming periods and less visible spaces. These various pasts and presents are, of course, bound together by friendships, by literary archives, by kinship networks, by tribal affiliations, by reserve and reservation geographies, and by relationships built within urban Indian hubs that, as Ho-Chunk scholar Renya K. Ramirez explains, enable a “Native social body that has been torn apart by colonialism” to “bring[] back together or re-member[]” community by “sharing their past and contemporary experiences” (9).
This research functions as one such “re-membering” by returning the writing and health sovereignty work of Anishinaabe lesbian fiction writer, wood carver, and HIV/AIDS activist Carole laFavor to the public eye. laFavor was a powerful voice for social justice and Indigenous health sovereignty during a time when speaking out about lesbian sexuality and HIV/AIDS activism were far from common topics. In addition, while large-scale movements about missing and murdered Indigenous women would come into being in the twenty-first century, laFavor spoke out about violence against Indigenous women in 1983 by publicly sharing the story of her brutal rape at the hands of two white man in the Minneapolis proceedings of the Pornography Civil Rights Hearings.[i] She likewise directly engages issues of violence against women throughout her writing. But laFavor is perhaps best known for serving as an influential voice for Indigenous people with HIV/AIDS. Notably, she appears in Dakota filmmaker Mona Smith’s 1988 documentary, Her Giveaway: A Spiritual Journey with AIDS, where she discusses her life as an HIV-positive Indigenous person since her 1986 diagnosis.[ii] She was also the subject of American Indians Against HIV/AIDS Leadership Project: Presentation by Carole laFavor, a 1991 educational video funded by the University of North Dakota Family Leadership Project.
Despite undertaking this important history, even today, with a significant body of research occurring in queer Indigenous studies, laFavor is little known among scholars despite the fact that her 1996 Along the Journey River is arguably the first novel with an Indigenous lesbian protagonist. LaFavor’s two detective novels, which consider how Indigenous people heal from sexual violence, and her activism, which centered on the culturally specific needs of Indigenous peoples with HIV/AIDS, pay close attention to the imbricated nature of tribal identity, health sovereignty, and sexuality. In fact, laFavor overtly situates Two-Spirit erotics as integral to twentieth-century tribal continuity..”
This poster, then, would introduce the audience to laFavor’s work and activism as well as showing how that activism makes an important contribution to the extant ties between Two-Spirit histories, lesbian identities, and Native health sovereignty.
[i] See In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings, edited by Catherine A. MacKinnon, Andrea Dworkin (147-149).
[ii] Smith, as Jennifer A. Machiorlatti explains, “has focused on health, wellness, history and Native identity as it is linked to the sense of place or original Indigenous lands. She produced work for the Minnesota American Indian AIDS Taskforce and National Indian AIDS Media Consortium” (13). Additionally, Smith served as the Program Coordinator for the latter from July 1991-February 1996.
Keywords
HIV/AIDS Activism, Two-Spirit, Native American
Recommended Citation
Tatonetti, Lisa (2016). "Carole laFavor’s Health Sovereignty Activism and Two-Spirit Traces," Institute for Student Learning Assessment.
Carole laFavor’s Health Sovereignty Activism and Two-Spirit Traces
I propose a poster submission on my recent scholarly work recovering Anishinaabe lesbian Carole laFavor’s writing and activism. The abstract offers an overview of the project.
We live in a moment of abundance. Queer Indigenous literature, theory, and erotics are everywhere and Two-Spirit peoples are not only here and queer, but are taking over the universe. Queer Native artists and activists are writing, beading, loving, painting, making films, making out, and making space for their work and words in the world. As is always the case, such moments of intense visibility--of Two-Spirit powwows, of special issues on queer Indigenous literature and critiques, of Indigenous erotic art installations--arise from many years in which folks loved and created in less welcoming periods and less visible spaces. These various pasts and presents are, of course, bound together by friendships, by literary archives, by kinship networks, by tribal affiliations, by reserve and reservation geographies, and by relationships built within urban Indian hubs that, as Ho-Chunk scholar Renya K. Ramirez explains, enable a “Native social body that has been torn apart by colonialism” to “bring[] back together or re-member[]” community by “sharing their past and contemporary experiences” (9).
This research functions as one such “re-membering” by returning the writing and health sovereignty work of Anishinaabe lesbian fiction writer, wood carver, and HIV/AIDS activist Carole laFavor to the public eye. laFavor was a powerful voice for social justice and Indigenous health sovereignty during a time when speaking out about lesbian sexuality and HIV/AIDS activism were far from common topics. In addition, while large-scale movements about missing and murdered Indigenous women would come into being in the twenty-first century, laFavor spoke out about violence against Indigenous women in 1983 by publicly sharing the story of her brutal rape at the hands of two white man in the Minneapolis proceedings of the Pornography Civil Rights Hearings.[i] She likewise directly engages issues of violence against women throughout her writing. But laFavor is perhaps best known for serving as an influential voice for Indigenous people with HIV/AIDS. Notably, she appears in Dakota filmmaker Mona Smith’s 1988 documentary, Her Giveaway: A Spiritual Journey with AIDS, where she discusses her life as an HIV-positive Indigenous person since her 1986 diagnosis.[ii] She was also the subject of American Indians Against HIV/AIDS Leadership Project: Presentation by Carole laFavor, a 1991 educational video funded by the University of North Dakota Family Leadership Project.
Despite undertaking this important history, even today, with a significant body of research occurring in queer Indigenous studies, laFavor is little known among scholars despite the fact that her 1996 Along the Journey River is arguably the first novel with an Indigenous lesbian protagonist. LaFavor’s two detective novels, which consider how Indigenous people heal from sexual violence, and her activism, which centered on the culturally specific needs of Indigenous peoples with HIV/AIDS, pay close attention to the imbricated nature of tribal identity, health sovereignty, and sexuality. In fact, laFavor overtly situates Two-Spirit erotics as integral to twentieth-century tribal continuity..”
This poster, then, would introduce the audience to laFavor’s work and activism as well as showing how that activism makes an important contribution to the extant ties between Two-Spirit histories, lesbian identities, and Native health sovereignty.
[i] See In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings, edited by Catherine A. MacKinnon, Andrea Dworkin (147-149).
[ii] Smith, as Jennifer A. Machiorlatti explains, “has focused on health, wellness, history and Native identity as it is linked to the sense of place or original Indigenous lands. She produced work for the Minnesota American Indian AIDS Taskforce and National Indian AIDS Media Consortium” (13). Additionally, Smith served as the Program Coordinator for the latter from July 1991-February 1996.
