Native American Feminism, Sovereignty, and Social Change

Andrea Smith’s article is a key text in Native feminist politics. It refuses the idea that feminism and Indigenous sovereignty must compete with one another, and it rejects accounts of sexual violence that reduce it to individual crime handled through criminal justice. Instead, it places sexual violence within the long history of settler colonialism, state power, racial violence, and community organizing.

The article matters because it treats sovereignty as a set of social relations and collective practices, not only as legal recognition. Smith examines how Native feminist organizing confronts both external colonial violence and patriarchal structures within communities. Anti-violence work, in this view, cannot rely uncritically on state systems that continue to punish Indigenous communities.

For FemRes, this article links anti-sexual violence, Indigenous sovereignty, and critiques of carceral feminism. It shows that Native feminism is not a niche addition to feminist politics. It redefines feminist politics through sovereignty, land, kinship, and community safety.