Judith H. Aks

Indigenous women have great difficulty making political and legal claims. Available strategies speak only to their indigenous identity or their gender, but not to both simultaneously. This book urges legal scholars to interrogate the problematic of intersectional power, or the combined effects of race and gender domination.

Aks's analysis of "marrying out" cases--when indigenous women marry outside of their tribe--in the United States and Canada examines how indigenous women mobilize the law. By marrying out of their tribes/bands, these women either lose their "Indian" status or are unable to pass such status on to their children, and they have few legal tools that encompass their unique identities. The book concludes that the impact of indigenous women's legal mobilization should be assessed in terms of the potential for future democratic participation. Legal mobilization helps tame the effects of intersectional power only if it provides indigenous women new opportunities to redefine rights.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Indigenous Women's Legal Mobilization
2. "Marrying Out" in the U.S.
3. "Marrying Out" in Canada, Part 1
4. "Marrying Out" in Canada, Part 2
5. Comparing the U.S. and Canadian Cases
6. Legal Mobilization at the Intersections of Power: Multiple Meanings, Multiple Opportunities, Multiple Constraints

Conclusion
References
Index