Title

Oka Apesvchi: Indigenous Feminism, Performance, and Protest

Theatre Journal

Description

Essay by Bethany Hughes (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) analyzing protest performances about water using the Indigenous feminist concept of radical relationality to elaborate on relations and obligations of humans and water.

Creator

Bethany Hughes

Abstract

Using Chahta words—hvpia, we all are; oka ohoyo, water woman; apesvchi, to guard and care for—this essay builds an Indigenous-centered analysis of protest performances about water. A song, a dance, and a play created by three different Indigenous women and performed within a few months of one another focus the essay's analysis on the Indigenous feminist concept of radical relationality. By highlighting the relationship between water and humans, the obligations that that relationship demands, and the active care required to fulfill those obligations, it shows how Indigenous protest performances are not against something, but for something—for the water, for the future.

volume

72

issue

2

pages

127-142

Date

June 2020

doi

10.1353/tj.2020.0029

issn

1086-332X

uri

Oka Apesvchi: Indigenous Feminism, Performance, and Protest

Is Part Of

State of the Salish Sea

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press