Abstract
Although all minorities experience inequalities, indigenous peoples in the United States tend to experience the most severe violent victimization. Until now, an organizing framework to explain or address the disproportionate rates of violent victimization was absent. Thus, the purpose of this conceptual article is to (a) introduce the concept of historical oppression, expanding the concept of historical trauma to make it inclusive of contemporary oppression; (b) describe the framework of historical oppression, resilience, and transcendence, which draws from distinct but related theoretical frameworks (that is, critical theory and resilience theory); and (c) apply the framework of historical oppression, resilience, and transcendence to the problem of violence against indigenous women. The proposed framework of historical oppression, resilience, and transcendence prioritizes social justice and strengths; it provides a culturally relevant framework, which can be used to explain, predict, and prevent violence. The article concludes with recommendations for future research, implications for practice, and recommended applications to other problems and populations.
To provide a culturally relevant framework to explain, predict, and prevent violence experienced by indigenous peoples, this article will (a) introduce the concept of historical oppression, expanding the concept of historical trauma to make it inclusive of contemporary oppression; (b) describe the framework of historical oppression, resilience, and transcendence, which draws from distinct but related theoretical frameworks (that is, critical theory and resilience theory); and (c) apply the framework of historical oppzression, resilience, and transcendence to the problem of violence against indigenous women by synthesizing extant research, which works from this framework. Although all minorities experience inequalities, indigenous peoples of the United States, to whom the scope of this article is limited, tend to experience the most severe violent victimization (Black et al., 2011).
Indigenous peoples is a term used to describe the diverse groups thought to be earliest inhabitants of a country and who share the history of being affected by colonization. The United States is home to 567 federally recognized tribes (Bureau of Indian Affairs [BIA], 2016), 66 state-recognized tribes (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2015), and around 400 tribes that exist outside either jurisdiction (U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2012). Thus, diverse membership and distinct trust relationships, based on treaty agreements with politically sovereign federally recognized tribes, warrants examining indigenous disparities separately from other ethnic minorities (BIA, 2016).
An Overview of Violence Experienced by Indigenous Peoples
The issue of disproportionate rates of violence experienced by indigenous peoples has drawn national attention (Black et al., 2011; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2013). Results of the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (Black et al., 2011) indicated that 46 percent of indigenous (for the purpose of this study, that is, American Indian and Alaska Native) women have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) (that is, rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner), compared with 43.7 percent of non-Hispanic black women, 34.6 percent of non-Hispanic white women, 37.1 percent of Hispanic women, and 53.8 percent of women identifying as multiracial non-Hispanic. Similarly, indigenous men experience the highest rates of IPV (45.3 percent), in comparison with black men (38.6 percent), non-Hispanic men (39.3 percent), Hispanic men (26.6 percent), and non-Hispanic white men (28.2 percent) (Black et al., 2011). Although IPV rates for both men and women are high, women tend to disproportionately suffer negative impacts from IPV, indicating the intersectionality and cumulative disadvantage of being female and minority (Black et al., 2011). For example, approximately 60 percent of women versus 17 percent of men who report IPV report feeling unsafe from the violence and approximately 81 percent of women versus approximately 35 percent of men report a negative impact from IPV experiences (Black et al., 2011).
Despite over five centuries of inequities against indigenous peoples since European American colonization began, there has been no organizing framework to explain or address such disparities (Jones, 2006). This absence severely limits the ability to accurately explain, predict, and prevent these disparities. Likewise, the disproportionate rates of violence and health disparities experienced by indigenous people can overshadow the remarkable resilience and transcendence of oppression that have been demonstrated; moreover, there are concerns about the scarcity of research on protective factors relating to violence and health disparities (Barney, 2001; Brownridge, 2008). This problem focus can marginalize already oppressed groups (Waller, 2001) and overlook the deep strengths of indigenous communities, families, and individuals, which have sustained them for centuries.
In this article, we propose a framework of historical oppression, resilience, and transcendence. The contributions of this framework are (a) expansion of a framework used with indigenous peoples (that is, historical trauma); (b) application of frameworks that are relevant but not yet adapted for indigenous people in the United States who have experienced violence (that is, the work of Paulo Freire); (c) delineation of a holistic theoretical framework, synthesizing relevant frameworks that have not been integrated (that is, critical theory and resilience theory); and (d) application of the explicated framework to the problem of violence against indigenous women. The resulting framework focuses on strengths and situates social problems experienced by indigenous peoples in their structural and historical causes (Burnette, 2015c).
Historical Oppression and Historical Trauma
The concept of historical oppression expands on historical trauma, a concept that includes the cumulative, massive, and chronic trauma imposed on a group across generations and within the life course (Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998; Duran, Duran, Brave Heart, & Yellow Horse-Davis, 1998). Unlike historical trauma, historical oppression includes both historical and contemporary forms of oppression. Historical oppression describes the chronic, pervasive, and intergenerational experiences of oppression that, over time, may be normalized, imposed, and internalized into the daily lives of many indigenous people (including individuals, families, and communities) (Burnette, 2015a, 2015c). Although historical oppession is inclusive of historical traumas, it is distinct in that it is localized to specific contexts and is inclusive of the proximal factors that continue to perpetuate oppression, including discrimination, microaggressions (that is, everyday injustices and demeaning messages that marginalized populations experience) (Walters & Simoni, 2009), poverty, and marginalization (Burnette, 2015c).
Examples of historical traumas inflicted on indigenous peoples include land dispossession, death of the majority of the populations through warfare and disease, forced removal and relocation, assimilative boarding school experiences, and prohibiting religious practices, among others (Evans-Campbell, 2008; Harper & Entrekin, 2006). As a result of historical traumas, indigenous peoples have experienced historical losses, which included the loss of land, traditional and spiritual ways, self-respect from poor treatment from government officials, language, family ties, trust from broken treaties, culture, and people (through early death); there are also losses that can be attributed to increased alcoholism (Whitbeck, Adams, Hoyt, & Chen, 2004). These losses have been associated with sadness and depression, anger, intrusive thoughts, discomfort, shame, fear, and distrust around white people (Whitbeck et al., 2004). Experiencing massive traumas and losses is thought to lead to cumulative and unresolved grief, which can result in the historical trauma response, which includes suicidal thoughts and acts, IPV, depression, alcoholism, self-destructive behavior, low self-esteem, anxiety, anger, and lowered emotional expression and recognition (Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998; Duran et al., 1998). These symptoms run parallel to the extant health disparities that are documented among indigenous peoples.
Walters et al. (2011) and others (Gone, 2013) have emphasized the need for greater delineation and explication of historical trauma for it to predict and explain social problems among indigenous Americans. Historical trauma, encompassing massive traumatic events, does not fully explicate the pervasive and chronic oppression that indigenous populations continue to experience, such as disrupted cultural patterns, economic inequality, and disjunction between traditional and mainstream life ways (Kirmayer, Gone, & Moses, 2014). Others have noted the challenges related to documenting empirical support for the concept of historical trauma (Walters et al., 2011), including the methodological problems in connecting historically distant events to contemporary problems, despite their undoubted effects (Burnette, 2015c). Finally, the historical trauma response is proposed as the psychological result of experiencing historical traumas, but the consequences of historical trauma undoubtedly transcend psychological ramifications to affect entire ethnic groups, communities, and families. Thus, it is important to explore these ripple effects. The focus now shifts to the proposed framework of historical oppression, resilience, and transcendence, which expands on the concept of historical trauma by incorporating contemporary and chronic forms of oppression and integrating an ecosystemic theory of resilience and transcendence.
A Framework of Historical Oppression, Resilience, and Transcendence
Cross (1998) recommended characterizing indigenous resilience from a relational worldview, emphasizing the interrelatedness and harmony of the mind, body, context, and spiritual aspects of all things. Thus, the framework of historical oppression, resilience, and transcendence uses an ecosystemic perspective, which enables the examination of the interactions and interconnections among risk and protective factors, which are on a continuum rather than being static categories and occur across individual, couple, familial, community, cultural, and societal levels (Masten & Monn, 2015; Waller, 2001). This perspective views resilience as a multidetermined and constantly changing result of people's interactions with the environment (Masten & Monn, 2015; Waller, 2001).
Risk and Protective Factors in an Ecosystemic Framework of Historical Oppression, Resilience, and Transcendence
Consistent with Cross's (1998) relational worldview, the framework of historical oppression, resilience, and transcendence adopts an ecosystemic perspective on indigenous-related resilience, which emphasizes the interrelatedness and harmony of the mind, body, context, and spiritual aspects of all things. According to this framework, the interaction, accumulation, interconnections, and balance of risk and protective factors across multiple levels predict whether a person experiences wellness after experiencing IPV (see Figure 1). This perspective is culturally congruent with indigenous peoples’ holistic view of interconnections between physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health (Cross, 1998; West et al., 2012).
Historical Oppression
The conceptualization of historical oppression is derived from critical theory, which examines the power dynamics that tend to impose and perpetuate inequality and oppression (Guba & Lincoln, 2004; Kincheloe & McLaren, 2005; Morrow & Brown, 1994). Although the work of Paulo Freire (2000) originally focused on his experiences in Brazil, he developed a useful perspective that can be applied to today's indigenous peoples, because it focuses on how colonial and historical oppression becomes embodied (that is, through internalized oppression) and self-perpetuating (that is, through horizontal violence and sub-oppression) (Burnette, 2015a, 2015c).
Freire's (2000) main assumption was that people desire for humanization, or freedom, yet often experience violence, oppression, and dehumanization, which is considered a limitation on freedom through exploitation and injustice. Freire (2000) suggested that mechanisms of dehumanization include (a) the oppressor imposing choices and values through prescription, the limiting the freedom of those with less power; (b) efforts to dominate and exploit others, which are intergenerationally transmitted; and (c) a possessive consciousness, “possessive of the world and of men and women” (p. 58).
Freire (2000) suggested that social problems emerge after centuries of experiencing chronic oppression, when people may feel resigned and helpless to effect change; this may lead people to be silenced, mistrustful, and understandably insecure. Similarly, when people are chronically and insidiously marginalized and feel that they lack the power to change the restrictive situation, there is a tendency to strike out at those of equal or less power (for example, women and children) through horizontal violence or to escape through substance use (Freire, 2000). This can explain how and why recipients of oppression may oppress fellow group members. Freire (2000) normalized sub-oppression as a common component of the initial stage of liberation from oppression, for there can be a certain adherence to the oppressor due to the desire for their wealth and status. Experiencing chronic oppression can also lead to the internalization of the oppressor, with the recipients of oppression inadvertently adopting the oppressor's dehumanizing beliefs and behaviors.
Thus, those with less power may emulate the oppressor in hopes of attaining power or preventing backlash. For example, if men in indigenous communities internalize the patriarchal, hegemonic, and sexist gender norms introduced through colonization, IPV will increase; indeed, as studies of men across ethnicities demonstrate, such beliefs increase risk for IPV (McDermott & Lopez, 2013; Tager, Good, & Brammer, 2010). It follows that leaders may become sub-oppressors, and oppressions may be perpetuated across generations with minimal external manipulation.
Resilience and Resistance
Nevertheless, humanization and transcendence are not only possible, but are a historic reality (Freire, 2000). Dehumanization eventually leads to transcendence in those who experience oppression but seek liberation (Freire, 2000). To overcome oppression, people must identify its causes and create a situation with fuller humanity, without resorting to oppressive tactics (Freire, 2000). This activity involves praxis, reflection and critical dialogue about causes of dehumanization coupled with social action to change these structural inequalities (Freire, 2000). Although those with more power may join them in solidarity in their fight for liberation, it is the job of those who experience oppression to seek emancipation (Freire, 2000). Although Freire described liberation as a challenging process, he predicted decolonization through expelling the oppressor's mentality by replacing it with responsibility, autonomy, and the strengths present prior to colonization (Freire, 2000; Walters & Simoni, 2009).
As Freire (2000) predicted, indigenous peoples have not been merely passive recipients of historical traumas, but rather have been resisting oppression and demonstrating “survivance” (a term coined by Vizenor, 2008) and resilience throughout history. Survivance includes the ingenuity indigenous peoples have continuously demonstrated despite the adversity imposed by colonization, such as a commitment to their homeland, strength of spirit, and humor (Vizenor, 2008).
Centuries of historical oppression have seriously constrained indigenous peoples, but the constraint has also provided the opportunity to develop ingenious skills to resist and transcend oppression (Robbins, Robbins, & Stennerson, 2013), sharpening resilience (Cross, 1998). Resilience includes the ability to positively adapt despite experiencing adversity (Greene, 2009). Risk factors increase or worsen negative outcomes, whereas protective factors buffer against problems (for example, IPV and health disparities) and strengthen positive outcomes (Masten & Monn, 2015; Waller, 2001). Resilience can be assessed at individual, familial, community, and cultural levels. Resistance acknowledges the continuous efforts made by indigenous peoples to respond to and transcend historical oppression.
The Framework of Historical Oppression and Resilience and Resistance as Applied to Violence against Indigenous Women
This section synthesizes research from a critical ethnography with 29 indigenous women who have experienced violence and 20 professionals who work with those who experience violence. Because the scope of this article is explicating how results apply to the framework of historical oppression, resilience, and transcendence, the details of this critical ethnography may be located within each respective reference.
An ecosystemic framework of historical oppression, resilience, and transcendence examines the risk and protective factors across societal, cultural, community, partner, and individual levels. The focus now turns to emergent risk and protective factors, which are thought to give rise to IPV and impair recovery from such violence.
Societal-Level Factors
When applied to violence against indigenous women, risk factors at the societal level have included historical oppression, namely colonial tactics of dehumanization (Burnette, 2015d). Such tactics include (a) cultural invasion (decades of warfare and cultural disruption brought on through colonization); (b) fragmenting indigenous communities against each other and introducing adversarial gender roles to replace indigenous complementary and egalitarian gender roles; (c) replacing indigenous belief systems about women with patriarchal and dehumanizing beliefs; and (d) manipulation (that is, selecting leaders to engage in sub-oppression by offering them greater resources) (Burnette, 2015d). A clear history of historical oppression impaired the respect and status of indigenous women, giving rise to greater rates of IPV (Burnette, 2015d). These tactics undermined but did not eradicate the societal protective factors of spirituality, cooperation, unity, organization, and cultural synthesis (that is, the capacity of culture for decolonization and liberation) still present in indigenous communities at present (Burnette, 2015d).
Community and Cultural Factors
Historical oppression did not stop with initial colonial efforts, but rather has persisted into contemporary times. Forms of historical oppression are localized and context specific. Contemporary experiences of oppression reported by this southeastern indigenous sample included, for example, sharecropping, attending assimilative boarding schools, and insidious experiences of discrimination, which led to losses in the forms of cultural traditions and lives, through early death (Burnette, 2015c). In fact, 60 percent of indigenous women who experienced IPV had lost a parent by the age of 18 (Burnette, 2015c). Moreover, cultural disruption continues to occur through widespread exposure to mainstream media influences and the imposition of prescriptive (Freire, 2000) policies, prioritizing Western service structures (Burnette, 2015c). In many ways, these service structures have clashed and competed with indigenous worldviews, which are thought to be protective for indigenous women (Burnette, 2015c).
Just as Freire (2000) proposed, experiences of discrimination and historical oppression have led community members to feel mistrustful of the general population and its services, causing them to remain silent about problems such as IPV (Burnette, 2015c). This silence and mistrust may have been an important survival and coping response to dangerous experiences of violence, injustice, and historical oppression over time (Burnette, 2015c). However, when silence is generalized to families, it may inadvertently enable family violence and pose as a barrier to help seeking and recovery from violence (Burnette, 2015c). Thus, coping mechanisms developed in response to historical oppression may have unintentional negative effects when generalized to individuals, families, and communities, perpetuating the problems introduced by historical oppression (for example, violence).
Weaver (2009) explained how dehumanizing beliefs about women have been internalized into indigenous communities, and, indeed, community members have described how IPV has been normalized (Burnette, 2015c; Burnette & Hefflinger, 2016; Freire, 2000; Weaver, 2009). These dehumanizing values and beliefs about women, introduced by colonization and perpetuated in a patriarchal context, made it difficult for women to leave violent relationships (Burnette, 2015c). Community members could blame women for being or remaining in violence situations, and IPV relationships tended to conform to the possessive ideology proposed by Freire (2000) (also see Burnette, 2015c). Moreover, during European settlement, colonial missionaries imposed exclusive Christian patriarchal beliefs, which have been found to be a disincentive for women to leave violent relationships (Burnette & Hefflinger, in press; Knickmeyer, Levitt, & Horne, 2010; Sharp, 2009); thus, the indigenous spiritual beliefs that held women sacred were disrupted and impaired, as was the social fabric that kept them safe.
Moreover, just as Freire (2000) exposed the colonial tactic of dividing the unity of communities, indigenous community members have commented on divisions within the community along age, income, and educational lines (Burnette & Hefflinger, 2016). Related to sub-oppression, many communities perceive inequality, which has disrupted the social and community support needed to overcoming IPV (Burnette & Hefflinger, 2016). Other barriers to effective community services for IPV include complexities related to dual relationships, challenges related to confidentiality in tight-knit communities, a lack of accountability, impunity for perpetrators, delayed responses, and inconsistent service responses (Burnette, 2015b).
Despite these cultural and community risk factors related to historical oppression, ample protective factors were also evident in the forms of enculturation (that is, learning about and identifying with indigenous culture) related to spirituality, language, traditions, cultural practices, and celebrations, which could connect indigenous women with protective indigenous values (Burnette, 2016a). Likewise the presence of tribally run services for IPV were promising community protective factors that many indigenous communities do not enjoy.
Family-Level Factors
The protective factor of enculturation was primarily transmitted through one of the most promising protective factors related to violence against indigenous women: families (Burnette, 2016a). Given aforementioned challenges with formal services, indigenous women tend to rely on informal support systems, which is primarily comprised of family and extended family, which tend to be tight-knit, supportive, and affirming and provide the wisdom of elders and role models (Burnette, 2016a). These factors tend to protect women against the effects of IPV and enable them to leave violent relationships earlier. On the other end of this continuum, families with poor communication, parental substance abuse, mental health challenges, impaired parent–child bonds, absent parents, and families exhibiting intergenerational patterns of these impairments could pose risk factors for women who experienced IPV (Burnette, 2016b). Indeed, just as division was a prominent colonial tactic appearing at societal and community levels, family division also characterizes such families (Burnette, 2016b).
Relational and Individual Factors
At the couple or relational level, having a supportive partner post-abuse was protective (Burnette & Hefflinger, in press), whereas emotionally and physically violent partners who demonstrated dehumanizing tactics, such as dominating, manipulating, using threats, using children, being controlling, following rigid patriarchal gender roles, using substances, and demonstrating jealousy and insecurity were relational risk factors (Burnette, 2015a). The latter factors paralleled Freire's (2000) assumptions of insecurity being a result of historical oppression along with the dehumanizing tactics present in colonization, such as domination, manipulation, conquest, and division (Burnette, 2015a).
Finally, at the individual level, experiencing child maltreatment, adverse childhood experiences, and teenage pregnancy were emergent risk factors (Burnette & Renner, 2016), whereas women demonstrated strongly protective traits to cope with and overcome violence, such as (a) being educationally oriented; (b) demonstrating affirming talents, abilities, self-sufficiency, and inner strength; (c) coping by helping others and expressing emotions; and (d) having faith, optimism, and resilience perspectives, such as learning and seeing growth from adversity (Burnette & Hefflinger, in press). Interestingly, colonial dehumanizing tactics not only had emerged at the societal levels, but as Weaver (2009) predicted, had been internalized at the community, family, and couple levels as well.
Future Directions, Applications, and Implications for Social Work
As indicated, emergent risk and protective factors, which occur along a continuum, have been identified related to violence against indigenous women, and themes related to historical oppression, resilience, and transcendence were apparent across societal, community, cultural, familial, partner, and individual levels. Although not all indigenous populations experienced the same forms of historical oppression, the majority have experienced oppression and related losses, giving rise to greater social problems. However, resilience and liberating efforts can easily be located and built on. Educators, researchers, and practitioners can use such a framework—in whole or in part—to situate social problems in a historical context and locate culturally specific risk and protective factors at the societal, community, family, partner, and individual levels to build on strengths and develop culturally relevant interventions. This framework can serve as a tool to take a holistic account of problems within their historical context and address risk factors across multiple levels.
Although this framework was applied to violence against indigenous women, a promising area for future research would be to apply this framework to other social problems, such as health disparities experienced by indigenous populations and populations experiencing historical oppression based on other dimensions of diversity. Because the framework includes an examination and incorporation of strengths and resilience, pathways to liberation and recovery are integrated. Finally, other theoretical frameworks, such as historical trauma, social learning theory, and life course theory, among others, can easily supplement and be used in conjunction with this framework. The framework suggests that building resilience in the face of historical oppression and making incremental improvements leads to wellness. The byproduct of increasing resilience in response to historical oppression is realizing humankind's historical “vocation” of becoming more fully human (Freire, 2000).
