9 Indigenous elders as sexual agents through storytelling as a queer and decolonial practice in ‘Canada’
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Madeline Burns
Abstract
This chapter discusses Indigenous elders (largely women and femmes) as folks who have deeply intimate and sexual knowledge of more-than-human-beings (lands, waters, elements, spiritual beings, tricksters, plant and animal nations) and, therefore, as people who play a significant role in sexuality in Indigenous communities. It is argued that elders are sexual agents who have much to teach society about relationality by means of storytelling as a queer and decolonial practice, given that eco-erotic (hi)stories in Indigenous communities trouble settler colonialism and heteronormativity. This chapter also unpacks the settler colonial imposition of alternative versions of time, gender and relationality, in order to demonstrate how elders disrupt this imposition through eco-erotic (hi)stories. This analysis is framed around (hi)stories such as ‘Why Ravens Smile to Little Old Ladies as they Walk By …’, shared by Richard Van Camp and ‘The Woman Who Married the Beaver’, shared by Melissa Nelson.
Abstract
This chapter discusses Indigenous elders (largely women and femmes) as folks who have deeply intimate and sexual knowledge of more-than-human-beings (lands, waters, elements, spiritual beings, tricksters, plant and animal nations) and, therefore, as people who play a significant role in sexuality in Indigenous communities. It is argued that elders are sexual agents who have much to teach society about relationality by means of storytelling as a queer and decolonial practice, given that eco-erotic (hi)stories in Indigenous communities trouble settler colonialism and heteronormativity. This chapter also unpacks the settler colonial imposition of alternative versions of time, gender and relationality, in order to demonstrate how elders disrupt this imposition through eco-erotic (hi)stories. This analysis is framed around (hi)stories such as ‘Why Ravens Smile to Little Old Ladies as they Walk By …’, shared by Richard Van Camp and ‘The Woman Who Married the Beaver’, shared by Melissa Nelson.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Thanks and acknowledgements v
- Contents vii
- Notes on editors and contributors ix
- Series editors’ introduction xv
- Foreword xxv
- Introduction to the volume: themes, issues and chapter synopses 1
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In/visibility and ambivalence
- Under the orhni: intimacy and near-invisibility among older Indo-Trinidadian queer menKrystal Nandini Ghisyawan and Marcus Kissoon 21
- Older kinnars, ageism and sexuality during the COVID-19 pandemic 38
- Doing complex intimacy in the later life of Chinese gay men in Hong Kong 54
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Women questioning age/ing intergenerationally and intragenerationally
- Deep within the eye of the beheld: exploring hidden accounts of intimacy in the lives of older Indian women in urban Malaysia 75
- From age of despair to window of opportunity? Reframing women’s sexuality in later life in the Middle East and North Africa 93
- Lost voices of Partition: carrying gender, nation and femininity across the life course 115
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Agency through fantasy, erotic tales and pleasure
- Sexual fantasies and older, Indigenous Purépecha women: sociocultural constraints and possibilities 139
- Indigenous elders as sexual agents through storytelling as a queer and decolonial practice in ‘Canada’ 157
- Sex, intimacy and older life in Muslim contexts 174
- Reflections: themes and issues emerging from the volume 192
- Index 209
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Thanks and acknowledgements v
- Contents vii
- Notes on editors and contributors ix
- Series editors’ introduction xv
- Foreword xxv
- Introduction to the volume: themes, issues and chapter synopses 1
-
In/visibility and ambivalence
- Under the orhni: intimacy and near-invisibility among older Indo-Trinidadian queer menKrystal Nandini Ghisyawan and Marcus Kissoon 21
- Older kinnars, ageism and sexuality during the COVID-19 pandemic 38
- Doing complex intimacy in the later life of Chinese gay men in Hong Kong 54
-
Women questioning age/ing intergenerationally and intragenerationally
- Deep within the eye of the beheld: exploring hidden accounts of intimacy in the lives of older Indian women in urban Malaysia 75
- From age of despair to window of opportunity? Reframing women’s sexuality in later life in the Middle East and North Africa 93
- Lost voices of Partition: carrying gender, nation and femininity across the life course 115
-
Agency through fantasy, erotic tales and pleasure
- Sexual fantasies and older, Indigenous Purépecha women: sociocultural constraints and possibilities 139
- Indigenous elders as sexual agents through storytelling as a queer and decolonial practice in ‘Canada’ 157
- Sex, intimacy and older life in Muslim contexts 174
- Reflections: themes and issues emerging from the volume 192
- Index 209
