Indiana University and the city of Bloomington occupy lands of enduring historical and cultural significance, and that for some was, is, and will always be home, to a number of Indigenous groups, including the Myaamiaki (Miami), Lënape (Delaware), saawanwa (Shawnee), kiikaapoa (Kickapoo), and Neshnabé/Bodwéwadmik (Potawatomi) peoples. We honor and acknowledge the ancestral and contemporary caretakers of this place, as well as our nonhuman spirits, elders, and guides, offer gratitude for being held and nourished by the land, and recognize the inherent sovereignty and resilience of all Native communities who have survived and still thrive to this day on Turtle Island in spite of the systemic subjugation, dispossession, and genocide that constitute the ongoing reality of settler-colonialism.
We encourage all, settlers and guests alike, to look beyond acknowledgement and engage with local Indigenous communities while also cultivating thoughtful relations of reciprocity with the sacred land you live on, as well as the many vibrant beings with whom you share it.
Further Resources & Reading
If you'd like to learn more about the practice and history of Indigenous land acknowledgments and the tribes, nations, and communities with ties to this land colonially known as the state of Indiana, consult our full resource guide.
We're glad you're here. This guide contains information pertaining to the subject areas of race, migration, and Indigeneity. Here you'll find featured content, helpful resources and services for scholars, instructional support information, research & writing tips, new titles, and recommended resources. You can also hover over each item in the navigation menu to the left for a brief description of what you'll find there; if you're using a mobile device, there is also a summary on each page.
The subject specialist and library liaison for this area is nicholae cline. If you would like to contact them, please use the profile box located on the left-hand side of this page. If you would like to request a purchase for our collections, you can use this form.
To learn more about who we are and the services we offer, including links to key general library services, take a look at the About Us page of this guide.
Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) is an interdisciplinary field that explores the diverse and complex experiences, histories, cultures, and contemporary lives and challenges of Native and Indigenous peoples in the Americas and beyond. NAIS draws from various disciplines such as history, anthropology, literature, law, ethnic studies, cultural studies, and more to examine the political sovereignty, intergovernmental relations, cultural expressions, social movements, and environmental challenges and activism of Native and Indigenous communities. NAIS also critically engages with the colonial legacies, racial formations, and epistemological frameworks that shape the representation and understanding of Native and Indigenous peoples across time.
To learn more about the College of Arts & Sciences Program in Native American & Indigenous Studies, please visit their website. Because this program maintains close ties with our cultural center, we encourage you to also learn about and connect with the First Nations Educational and Cultural Center as well.
The Global Indigenous Studies Network is another helpful resource for anyone who is interested in indigeneity from a global perspective.
This page provides suggested resources (books, video & film, articles & databases) relevant to Two-Spirit Identity and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual (LGBTQIA) Indigenous Identity.
The term Two-Spirit (2S, 2Spirit, Two Spirit, Twospirited) was coined in 1990 at the Indigenous lesbian and gay international gathering in Winnipeg. The term is a pan-Indian, umbrella term used by a number of Indigenous Native Americans to describe Native Peoples who fulfill traditional third-gender or variant-gender roles in their communities and cultures. The term is generally accepted but faces controversy from critics who consider it as reinforcing western notions of binary gender or attempting to erase terms that already exist in traditional communities for gender-variant members.
Acceptance, treatment, status, and rights of LGBTQIA Indigenous peoples and Two-Spirit individuals have varied historically. Contemporary understandings of Two-Spirit identity and what it means to be Indigenous and LGBTQIA vary greatly from tribe to tribe. We hope the resources collected in these pages will help readers gain a nuanced understanding of Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA Indigenous Identity.
Video: Nick Metcalf gives insight into his experiences being a two spirit, and explains why gender fluidity is necessary in today’s world | TEDx (2015).
This mix features two-spirit and other Indigenous LGBTQIA and nonbinary/transgender artists from across Turtle Island, as well as other parts of the world. A work in progress, we welcome suggestions for artists from these groups for inclusion.
Note: To enjoy the playlist in full, click on the white Spotify icon in the upper-right corner of the playlist, and press the "like" (♡) button in the application to save.
To learn more about the artists and communities represented in this playlist, check out some of the resources we consulted:
If you'd like to learn more about this month-long celebration of Indigenous communities and identity, we've created a guide with list of resources, as well as a playlist featuring Indigenous musicians, on the Media Studies Research Guide. There is also an overview of Indigenous Philosophy on the Philosophy Research Guide.
For more information about the Indigenous communities with ongoing and traditional ties to this land, and how to support Indigenous groups and movements, take a look at our Land Acknowledgment and Local Indigenous Resources guide.
Video: Author and Indigenous elder Ma-Nee Chacaby talks about Two Spirit identities | Out Saskatoon (2018)
Access to classic and contemporary documentaries, previously unpublished footage from anthropologists and ethnographers working in the field, and some feature films. Includes searchable transcripts.
Access is for Volumes 1-4.
Ethnographic Video Online, Vols. I and II: Foundational Films
Includes classic and contemporary ethnographies, documentaries and shorts from every continent.
Ethnographic Video Online, Vol. III: Indigenous Voices
Includes films by indigenous filmmakers. Emphasis is on the human effects of climate change, sustainability, indigenous and local ways of interpreting history, cultural change, and traditional knowledge and storytelling.
Ethnographic Video Online, Vol. IV: Festivals and Archives
Includes titles by contemporary visual anthropologists. Also contains the full catalog of anthropology films from Berkeley Media, formerly known as the University of California’s Extension Center for Media.
Kanopy Streaming Video gathers streaming videos from a variety of producers and makes them available to students. Faculty and instructors may request titles for purchase by the Libraries via the Kanopy Streaming Video site. Priority access will be given to faculty and instructors for class use.
Hames-García, M. (2013). What's After Queer Theory? Queer Ethnic and Indigenous Studies. Feminist Studies 39(2), 384-404.
Robinson, M. (2020). Two-Spirit Identity in a Time of Gender Fluidity. Journal of Homosexuality, 67(12), 1675–1690.
Robinson, M. (2017). Two-Spirit and Bisexual People: Different Umbrella, Same Rain. Journal of Bisexuality, 17(1), 7–29.
Morgensen, S. L. (2011). Unsettling Queer Politics: What Can Non-Natives Learn from Two-Spirit Organizing? In Q.-L. Driskill, C. Finley, B. J. Gilley, & S. L. Morgensen (Eds.), Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics, and Literature, 132–152.
Lang, S. (2016). Native American men-women, lesbians, two-spirits: Contemporary and historical perspectives. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 20(3/4), 299–323.
Kongerslev, M. (2018). Dance to the Two-Spirit. Mythologizations of the Queer Native. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, 27(4).
Greensmith, C., & Giwa, S. (2013). Challenging Settler Colonialism in Contemporary Queer Politics: Settler Homonationalism, Pride Toronto, and Two-Spirit Subjectivities. American Indian Culture & Research Journal, 37(2), 129–148.
*while there is some overlap and commonalities in understandings of gender and sexuality across groups, when doing research relevant to Indigenous identities, it is always best practice to search using the names of individual tribes, nations, and communities when possible
Indigenous Aboriginal Native First Nations Race POC (people of color) BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color)
|
Queer Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Identity Sexuality Sexual Orientation Two-spirit (sometimes "two spirit", "two spirited" or "two-spirited") LGBT LGBTQ LGBTQ2S |
Gender Studies Gender Colonial(ism) Decolonial(ism) Decolonizing |
Provides full-text coverage of magazine, newspaper, and scholarly journal articles for most academic disciplines.
This multi-disciplinary database provides full-text for more than 4,500 journals, including full text for more than 3,700 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles.
Bibliographic database of journal, newspaper, and magazine articles from international alternative, radical, and leftist periodicals.
Focus is on the practice and theory of socialism, national liberation, labor, Indigenous Peoples, LGBT, feminism, ecology, democracy, and anarchism.
Provides access to materials exploring important aspects of LGBTQ life. Includes periodicals, newsletters, manuscripts, government records, organizational papers, correspondence, an international selection of posters, and other primary source materials.
Includes access to five modules: LGBTQ History Since 1940, part 1; LGBTQ History Since 1940, part 2; Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century; International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture; and L'Enfer de la Bibliotheque Nationale de France Digital Archive.
Bibliographic database covering all aspects of Indigenous culture, history, and life in North America. Includes more than 350,000 citations for newspapers, magazines, academic journals, books, reviews, and trade publications from the United States and Canada with expanded content from Great Britain and Australia.
This resource covers a wide range of topics including acculturation, archaeology, education, Ethnohistory, and economic development, folklore, the gaming industry, missions, mythology, religion, and tribal governments.
Primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. Includes sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.
Material has been sourced from across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Key areas represented in the material include: employment and labor, education, government and legislation, the body, domesticity and the family. Includes records from men’s and women’s organisations and pressure groups, detailing twentieth-century lobbying and activism on a wide array of issues to reveal developing gender relations and prevalent challenges.
Citations to articles, books, conference papers, pamphlets, dissertations and other publications about gender inequality, masculinity, post-feminism, and gender identity.
Gender Studies Database provides indexing and abstracts covering the full spectrum of gender-related scholarship. It offers over a million records from scholarly and popular publications, including journals, books, conference papers and theses.
Full text database with a focus on how gender impacts a variety of subject areas.
GenderWatch is a full text database of nearly 400 periodicals and other publications that focus on how gender impacts a variety of subject areas. Publications include academic and scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, regional publications, books, booklets and pamphlets, conference proceedings, and government, and special reports.
Covers the historical experiences, cultural traditions and innovations, and political status of Indigenous Peoples in the United States and Canada. The archive includes monographs, manuscripts, newspapers, periodicals and photographs. Includes access to Part I and Part II: The Indian Rights Association, 1882-1986.
The LGBTQ+ Library Catalog contains materials pertaining to asexual, bisexual, gay, intersex, lesbian, transgender, and queer issues. These resources include books, videos, CDs, and periodicals. This collection is intended to be a resource for both research and entertainment.
The LGBTQ+ Library provides lending services to the entire community; anyone can register to become a patron with a photo ID.
Index citations and selected full-text literature in gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender studies
Includes a variety of scholarly, popular and regional resources, journals, books, magazines and more.
LGBT Thought and Culture is an online resource hosting books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day.
Selection of resources freely available online
Lists of recommended titles from online sources