Indigenous Sisters: Remembering Together to Resist Together

Day 3 11am 2 hours Thai, English

“There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” ― Arundhati Roy Indigenous women and girls comprise roughly half of the total indigenous population of 476 million globally. 80% of those who identify as indigenous are based in the Asia Pacific region. And yet their voices have been silenced historically in mainstream discourses, in rooms where policies are made, and in everyday praxis.

In a world where interconnectedness means the sharing of diverse experiences through community building and movement formation, indigenous women’s collective wisdom is often not documented and distributed beyond their immediate environments and networks. An intersectional feminist approach needs to build consultative and inclusive opportunities that include indigenous feminism.

Indigenous women are the custodians of traditional knowledge, caregivers, and peacekeepers skilfully stewarding their land and territories. There is much to learn from their practical magic rooted as they are on indigenous core values of self-determination, co-responsibility, reconciliation, voluntarism, and foundational leadership.

Can we imagine a brave new world that values and fosters human rights and values centered on dismantling intersecting oppressive systems of governance? For centuries Indigenous Peoples have served as test subjects for nation States and their projects of genocide, in developing the stages of dehumanization that lead to the containment and death of millions through forced displacement and militarisation. Who else to talk to when the world is currently witnessing the most visible of genocides in Gaza? Who else to remember and use that memory as a way to counter ongoing harm?

Indigenous women have experienced the full horrors of living under the shadow of militarization and state-controlled mechanisms, in popular media, through the oppressors’ gaze which is aimed at dehumanizing them. Further taking away their dignity making it their lived reality to break the cycles of capitalist patriarchal systems rooted in sexism, heterosexism, ableism, classism, and ageism; reinforced by government, education, and culture, all of which continue the the oppression of marginalized social groups while elevating dominant social ones.

Indigenous women belong to multiple oppressed groups and face triple discrimination because an overwhelming majority are indigenous, poor, and women. This has caused deep intergenerational traumas from these intersecting oppressed identities. The indigenous women’s movement must be bolstered by feminist allyship and finding ways to resist through rest and self-care, in funding opportunities that improve the lives of indigenous women and children.

The panel discussion will cover a breadth of intersecting topics that impact indigenous women. It will aim to uncover systemic and interconnected oppressions and indigenous women’s movements in Asia and how we have built solidarity networks to advocate for ourselves. How we nurture ourselves and each other while resisting through our voices, using art, poetry, collective memories and sharing joy to heal together.