The politics of tradition: Aboriginal nationalism and women. Mexico and Canada in comparative perspective

Since the 1970s, North American Indigenous peoples have struggled to organize, represent their identity as internal nations and assert their right to self-determination. Although Canada and Mexico have had a very different history, legal tradition, culture and ethnic composition, these countries have experienced a similar resurgence of Aboriginal movements. Nonetheless, Indigenous movements in these countries have rarely been examined under the lens of nationalism. Even less explored has been the relationship between Aboriginal nationalism, tradition and gender.; This dissertation explores how this relationship is expressed in four specific cases, in both Canada and Mexico. This dissertation argues that the construction of Indigenous nationalism is a political process in which traditional and historical models are evoked, gender roles are constructed, symbols, customs, political and social practices are selected in the assertion of the right to a homeland and self-determination. The political purpose of constructing nationalism is to represent a homogeneous identity and to create a sense of deep commonality based upon tradition. In the interface between nationalist discourses, territorial struggles and tradition, gender issues are diluted because gender is not the object of struggle but the collective experience of material and social inequalities. Nevertheless, as this study shows, conceptualizing struggles, defining membership, constructing the vision of the nation and distributing its material content is a gendered exercise.; The four cases studied in this dissertation are Nunavut, San Andres Larrainzar, Oaxaca, and the Nisga'a nation. The analysis of these cases suggests several interconnected conclusions. Fundamentally, in the process of constructing nationalism dominant groups also dominate the discourse on tradition and the subordinate groups whose discourse differs from that of the dominant. As the contestable issue of gender remains submerged in political struggles emphasizing cultural difference and experiences of material and social inequalities, Indigenous women' voices remain 'muted,' Nevertheless, as a subordinate group, Indigenous women act to transform the interface between discourses of place, tradition and politics in Aboriginal struggles. In this process, Indigenous women are not merely subject to unified racial and gendered identities, but are agents claiming to construct and mediate meaningful complex subjectivities.