Decolonizing Feminism: Challenging Connections between Settler Colonialism and Heteropatriarchy

Maile Arvin, Eve Tuck, and Angie Morrill’s article is a major methodological text for Indigenous feminism and decolonial feminist thought. It argues that feminism cannot treat colonialism as background context while leaving settler occupation, land relations, kinship, gender order, and knowledge production intact.

Its central contribution is to place heteropatriarchy inside the structure of settler colonialism. For Indigenous communities, gender violence, family norms, academic research, and state recognition are not separate issues. They are entangled with land theft, the denial of sovereignty, and colonial governance. The authors ask feminism to stop absorbing Indigenous experience as another category of difference and instead reckon with Indigenous political relations and refusals.

For FemRes, this article belongs with Indigenous sovereignty, queer Indigenous feminism, and decolonial feminist method. It makes clear that decolonization is not an add-on to feminism. It requires feminism to examine its own location, benefits, and limits as a knowledge project.