땅과 생명을 위한 투쟁들

Struggles for Land and Life: Native American Women's Lives and the Environmental Movement

The primary purpose of this study is to examine Native American women's lives and the environmental movement. Each of the various Native American cultures is different in at least one way that distinguishes them from others. Women's positions within these cultures are also different. However, most of the origin myths and legends describe the important role of woman as creator for their tribes. In other words, the Native American women have been the heart of society in many ways. The differences in Native American and white values begin with different perceptions, constituting opposite viewpoints of the world and of nature. Native American teachings describe the connectedness of everything. They believe in a power in the world that governs everything that grows. They refer to it as the supernatural power of “Mother Earth.” They believe that everything created is holy and has a power of some sort. Native Americans have traditional knowledge and values that are superior to anything in western scientific and industrialized cultures. Yet, white “culture” neither understands nor respects the knowledge and values of Native Americans. After the invasion of the Europeans, Native Americans lost their spiritual power. Such spirituality was replaced by notions of “civilization” and “religion” that were disconnected from mind, body, and human connection to the natural world. Native Americans viewed the consequent environmental degradations as merely one more manifestation of colonialism that attacked their lives for over 500 hundred years. Presently, Native Americans are suffering from multiple environmental crises. As a result, the Native American women who have realized the critical danger to their families and children are the ones leading the environmental justice movement. They are resisting various environmental degradations such as mining, dam projects, and toxic and nuclear waste dumps on reservations. Currently, Native Americans have close to 200 grassroots environmental organizations in North America. Most of these are small and suffer from financial problems, rarely making the news. Despite meager resources, they have won many hard fought victories on the local level of the environmental movement. They insist that they will not give up fighting until they achieve environmental justice for their homelands.