UCLA Professor Shannon Speed‘s new book, Incarcerated Stories: Indigenous Women Migrants and Violence in the Settler-Capitalist State, examines the myriad forms of violence that Indigenous women from the Americas face. Dr. Speed, UCLA American Indian Studies Center Director and Gender Studies and Anthropology Professor, characterizes the structural violence these women endure as “neoliberal multicriminalism” where economic and political policies render them vulnerable. Her book uses a critically engaged, activist-research approach, specifically ethnographic practices, to record and recount stories from Indigenous women in U.S. detention. Dr. Speed demonstrates that these women’s vulnerability to individual and state violence is not rooted in a failure to exercise agency. Rather, it is a structural condition, created and reinforced by settler colonialism, which consistently deploys racial and gender ideologies to manage the ongoing business of occupation and capitalist exploitation.
Interview Chapters:
0:04 – Introduction
0:51 – What are the myriad forms of violence that Indigenous women from the Americas face?
4:05 – What do the women’s stories reveal?
5:22 – Can you elaborate on your term “neoliberal multicriminalism”?
11:15 – What nuance can you get out of a critically engaged, activist-research approach?
12:55 – How does the book help us understand contemporary times? And how does it challenge and combat “multicriminalism”?
To learn more, check out Professor Speed’s book, Incarcerated Stories: Indigenous Women Migrants and Violence in the Settler-Capitalist State.
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